


New Direction

by Brennanaphone



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Au theater, Bad Decisions, Bellarke, But at least it happens, But it takes forever to happen, Clexa (a little I mean Jesus how can it not be in there it's season 2 for god's sake), Drama, Dude don't put your mouth on that, F/M, Leadershipping, Season/Series 02, Sexual Tension, Sexy Times, Slow Burn, Unlike some shows I could name, haha get it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-04-26 01:17:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 53,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4984261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brennanaphone/pseuds/Brennanaphone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy's directing, Clarke is the stage manager, but the Ark Theater is going under. This is nearly word-for-word a reimagining of Season 2...only with some smut? Whatevs.</p><p>I wrote this mostly because it's hilarious to have a goofy modern AU about drama kids when your source material is literally the darkest, most dramatic thing in the world.</p><p>Also, all theatre kids make out with each other indiscriminately, so this is a great way to explain the Lexa-Clarke-Bellamy situation without alien sex pollen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Casting Call

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this chapter so I could picture Bellamy giving one of his speeches on an actual stage because I believe he deserves that in my soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Because I will not do  
> them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the  
> right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which  
> I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor."  
> \- Benedick, Act I, Scene i

"So. We're all here." Bellamy Blake grimaced, looking around the theater at the human detritus that fate had seen fit to deliver him. It was a lie, of course. They were not all there. Quite conspicuously, in fact. 

When they'd started the Ark summer theater program five years ago, more than a hundred young artists had signed on (even if two of them just never showed up). Now that revenue had dwindled, though, and that last grant had fallen through, he counted what, maybe fifty? Not even? The theater didn't have a large auditorium, but with only the first few rows sparsely occupied, it seemed huge. The Ark was dying, and Bellamy didn't want to think about that.

Jasper Jordan, looking just as gangly and goofy at twenty as he had at fifteen, raised one hand dramatically and waved it around.  _Speaking of not all there..._

"Wait, what is this?" he asked, with the suspicious air of a child who has just started to realize that his ice cream sundae is made of tofu. "Auditions were two weeks ago. I thought today we were getting a cast list and a whole lotta booze."

"Okay, a) it's eleven o'clock in the goddamn morning, and b) just shut up and listen for a second."

"Hey, I've got, uh, herbs, is that good enough?"

Jasper brightened and turned to face Monty Green, who was holding up a dime bag a few rows back. "Hell, yes, son--summer season has be _gun_!"

They high-fived themselves simultaneously. In the front row, Nathan Miller groaned.

"Fuck me, I forgot they do that. I can't be here for this."

"Sit your ass down, Miller, I'm not done talking." Right on cue, the house lights dimmed, leaving only the stage lit. Bellamy glanced up at the control booth and nodded his grateful acknowledgement. Raven Reyes wasn't just a tech genius--she had an impeccable sense of dramatic timing. The room settled back down.

Monty raised his hand and Bellamy sighed. "What?"

"Are we doing the usual racial casting with  _Othello_? I'm not saying doing it colorblind is good or bad necessarily here, but it kind of seems like Shakespeare already didn't write any specifically Asian roles, and also I kind of hate this play. It has a lot of presumptive bias."

Bellamy pinched the bridge his nose and counted down to the moment he snapped and murdered them all. "Monty," he said patiently. "You're our sound guy. You're not even in the fucking play."

"Hey. Voice of God up here. You might want to be careful how you talk to my tech crew," warned Raven's disembodied voice.

"And the rest of us!" Harper called from the audience.

"Good Christ, everyone shut up!" Bellamy barked. The room fell silent. "Pay attention, guys, because this is important. The Ark has given us some serious credibility for the last five summers. It's why we're all real live actors, directors, teachers, and artists."

"And broke!"

"And homeless!"

"Shut up, Jasper, you're not homeless," someone called derisively.

Jasper turned in his seat. "Does living in this theater not count as homeless anymore? Because I'm definitely doing that now."

"Well, it's why we're all here anyway," Bellamy persisted. "The thing is, the Ark has had no funding for the last six months and we're going to have to shut down unless we do something about it." Bellamy clenched his fists and felt the old, familiar surge of pleasure as the sense of pontificating came back to him. God, he loved the summer season. So much better than the other seven months, where he wrote grants all day long and shmoozed rich assholes for donations. "Some bullshit umbrella company thinks they can buy us out, tear down the theater, and put in a Raw Hippie Juice Smoothie Bar or another corporate Walmart dildo sweatshop. And we're not going to let that happen."

"I dunno, I kind of want to see a Walmart dildo sweatshop," John Murphy drawled from his lonely seat all the way in the back. "I mean, just to browse or whatever. I wouldn't actually touch anything in it."

"Shut up, Murphy." Murphy had been kicked out of the program three years ago for dropping sandbags on people from the catwalk, but Bellamy had brought him back for  _Othello_. It wasn't something he was looking forward to necessarily, but it had to be done. No one could play Iago like John Murphy.

Bellamy turned his focus on everyone else. "The stakes are high. Mount Weather Inc. wants this property pretty bad. So I've made some arrangements that most of you guys aren't going to like." His lip twisted. "And I've made a few more arrangements that  _I'm_  not going to like. But we take our lumps so we can do what we love--putting on overpriced theater that no one fucking understands." He stabbed a finger at the stage beneath his feet. "This is our home. And no one is taking it away from us."

For a moment there was an admiring silence. He briefly missed being an actor instead of a director.

"Well, that's not  _technically_  true," came a gratingly authoritative voice from the past.

The wash lights fell to a single spotlight, and Clarke Griffin stepped out from behind the curtains and onto the stage. As she'd surely intended, a soft susurrus of whispering swept through the room. A few people even waved. Jasper stood up and pointed wildly toward the stage, his mouth open.

"Clarke! It's fuckin'  _Clarke_!"

Even though he'd been expecting her--had even talked to her briefly on the phone throughout the year--the sight of Clarke after so long twisted Bellamy's lungs into balloon animals. She flashed a grin at him, the spotlight turning her wavy blonde hair into a golden halo.  _Damn you, Reyes._  That dramatic timing was really a double-edged sword. He watched sourly as Clarke literally upstaged him.

"Bellamy's right...in essence," she explained with her usual aggressive earnestness. A year away hadn't taken that from her. "But we have to make some sacrifices. I've been in talks with Ground Zero about our options. We can scrape together enough money to keep the Ark alive for another year if we get support from their donor base...and also stage a play with them." 

As predicted, the wave of outrage rose up in response. " _What_?" Monroe demanded. "You're making us  _work_  with those freaks?"

"But they hate us!"

"No, we hate them!"

"Didn't they try to burn down the building that one time?"

"I think that was Jasper."

Bellamy watched the look of general discontent spread across the audience, unsurprised. She might as well have suggested that they stage  _Titus Andronicus_  using bleach instead of fake blood.

"Dude, I interned at Ground Zero one summer," Murphy called, causing an awkward silence as everyone remembered the year he was expelled. "They're fuckin'  _weird_. No sense of humor, no  _talent_. They just put on a bunch of scary-ass makeup and do new age movement pieces."

"Yeah, Clarke, that's a good point," Bellamy taunted softly, glancing down at her. "How are we going to put on  _Othello_  with people who prefer to paint themselves with aerosol cheese, stand in a bathtub, and call it art?"

She remained unperturbed. "Anya did that  _once_ , Bellamy, and it was social commentary."

"On  _what_?"

She ignored him and addressed the audience. "You don't have to like it, but we need Ground Zero. They've been getting a lot of funding this year, and they're not asking a lot. They just want partial ownership of this theater to put on their performances; their temporary space doesn't have the room. It'll be mostly during our off season anyway, so I don't want to hear any whining."

As usual, there was whining in the form of Jasper.

"What. The fuck. Is going on?" he demanded, spreading his arms as though to encompass the whole situation. "Why is Clarke here and how come no one's making a big deal about it? I thought after  _The Dropship_  bombed--"

Next to Bellamy, Clarke stiffened noticeably.

"Hey, dude, shut up," Miller muttered warningly. Miller could smell a conflict a mile away.

"But Bellamy said Clarke felt like Finn leaving was her--"

"JASPER." Raven's voice was so loud over the intercom that sharp feedback screeched through the room, making everyone wince. "What is the one rule at the Ark?"

Jasper looked guiltily up at the control booth. "Don't touch the prop table?"

" _My_  one rule."

"'Don't bring up failed shows,'" he recited dutifully, hanging his head.

"Or?" she prompted.

"'Or dirtbag actors slash playwrights.'"

" _Or?_ "

"'Or you'll gut me like a fish.' Sorry, Raven," he called, meekly retaking his seat.

"It's fine," she replied loftily. "Finn Collins is dead to me anyway."

The room had fallen into nervous silence. Clarke was staring resolutely at her feet.

"Nothing major is going to change this season," Bellamy growled, redirecting the discussion before it got any more uncomfortable. "Look, Clarke still knows jack-all about directing a play. She's just here to do some handholding with the Grounders--"

" _Bellamy,_ " she hissed.

"Fuck, whatever, with 'Ground Zero.' Logistics and stage managing only. I'm still directing  _Othello_  my way."

"Actually..."

"Actually, what?"

"Well, you have it half right..."

He felt the urge to massacre return. "You're trying to tell me I don't get to direct my own play?"

"I'm trying to tell you that we're not doing  _Othello_. We're doing  _Much Ado About Nothing_."

He stared at her, stunned. No one moved or spoke for a long moment as everyone became aware that a showdown was happening in front of them, on a stage, and they hadn't even had to pay the price of admission.

He folded his arms belligerently. "Fuck you, I'm not doing it." No one pretended to be offended by this; it was pretty standard Bellamy.

Clarke faced him without batting an eye, as though they did not have an audience of fifty people. "You are, actually." He took a step toward her, but she didn't flinch. In fact, she stood tall and raised her eyebrows with that look he'd seen before that meant,  _Go ahead, talk in the wings during a show. I dare you._  "I already discussed it with Lincoln. He's pitching it to the new artistic director today on the condition that he and Octavia be allowed to audition. She's going to go for it."

Bellamy tried to swallow the injustice of this and found that it stuck in his throat. "You went behind my back and talked to my  _sister_  and her--her--"

"Boyfriend," Clarke supplied cheerfully.

"Grounder-pounder," Murphy stage whispered from the back. Bellamy lurched toward the sound, ready to jump into the audience and have a go. Clarke caught him by the arm and kept him in place.

"They've both worked at Ground Zero, they've both worked here, and they actually want to help," she said in her Voice of Reason, which she knew drove him nuts. "Octavia's excited about coming back here. She thinks we've got a real shot at pulling everyone together." Clarke smiled, perhaps a trifle unwillingly. "She's already calling the first rehearsal 'Unity Day.'"

The reminder that he didn't see his sister often enough to know her current state of mind felt like a dig. He shook Clarke off. "Too bad. We're not staging a romantic comedy, and I'm not letting that...psycho guy of hers in here. She hasn't had decent work in a year because of him. This is what I keep saying: No romances in--"

"--the workplace, people!" a smattering of individuals finished for him. One of them was Clarke, giving him a mocking smile.

Meeting her infuriating blue-eyed stare head-on, he growled, "You should know that better than anyone."

He regretted the jab almost immediately, not least because Harper yelled, "Seriously, Bellamy?", Miller chucked a crumpled-up soda can at his head, and Raven started playing "Dot" by Destiny's Child over the intercom to drown everything else out.

 _Shut up, no one said to open your mouth._  
_Shut up, if you do not like me how about,_  
_Shut up? Why waste your energy on me?  
_ _Shut up, is it 'cuz you want to be me?_

And just like that, he'd turned the tides against himself. How had this happened? How on earth did Clarke always get her way?

She hadn't cracked. His words seemed to have no effect on her at all. With a deceptive air of patient fairness, she presented her fist on the platter of her other palm. "Best out of three?" she asked innocently. He glowered. 

"No. That is not how we decide things, Clarke."

"You just know I'll win."

With furious reluctance, he settled his fist into his hand, partially to keep from punching something. She grinned at him.

"I'll make it easy for you this time: I'm going to throw Scissors." 

Just two rounds later, it was all over.

"Fine!" he growled, dropping his hands. "We'll do  _Much Ado_. Whatever."

"Yessssssss," Monty hissed triumphantly from his seat.

Up in the control booth, Raven slowly and prudently let the lights fade to black.

 

 

**********************

Two hours later, Bellamy had finally shunted the last of them out the doors. Normally, actors fled the moment you released them, but this time he had found himself with a mob of people demanding new auditions, including Monty, who now wanted consideration for a comedic role, big surprise.

Bellamy had to admit, Clarke had handled it well enough. She'd persuaded everyone that she knew their strengths well enough to cast the show without redoing auditions. She told Monty she'd let him take part on stage. She had sworn that no one would have to wear face tattoos now that the Grounders were coming on board. She'd...well, managed them. Adroitly.

The only crack Bellamy had seen in her was when Jasper rushed the stage. He'd vaulted up onto the edge, ignoring her pleas for him to use the stairs ( _once a stage manager, always a stage manager,_  Bellamy thought dryly), and engulfed her in a bony-ass hug. When he sighed, "You came back to us," Bellamy could have sworn she looked choked up, if only for a minute.

But now the double doors had banged shut for the last time, and echoes of Jasper yelling, "I call Dogberry!" were fading down the hall. Bellamy turned, his eyes dragging reluctantly up the long aisle to the stage. Clarke sat on the edge, kicking her heels. Her head was tipped back and her eyes were closed as though she were warming herself in the sun instead of under a spotlight.

Bellamy had hated Clarke when they first met. As far as he was concerned, anyone appointed as a pencil-pushing watchdog by Abby Griffin was the enemy. So when she'd walked in the first day already wearing her own headset and clutching an overflowing binder with color-coded tabs, she'd set his teeth on edge. He'd been wrong about her, though. She wasn't her mother's lackey. She was a creative maelstrom and a royal pain in the ass.

It seemed she could sense him hesitating by the doors. "You know why you always lose at Rock, Paper, Scissors?" she called liltingly.

"Because you cheat?"

"Because your first instinct is always to go for Rock."

"I didn't even throw Rock this time!" he protested, insulted.

She smiled, leaning back so far that the tips of her long hair brushed the stage. "I know."

It was then that he realized she had played him. No stage manager worth her salt would ever have sprung a production change that huge on the director in front of the cast. She must have known that if she tried to convince him in private, he would have argued a lot longer and a lot harder. She'd used his own people against him.

He had trouble not admiring that a little.

"So," he called, hands in his pockets as he made his way slowly up the aisle. "Why not  _Othello_?" He'd meant to be furious with her, but it was difficult when she looked so at peace. The way she leaned back and rested her weight on her palms was like someone who'd just come home after a long trip.

She didn't open her eyes. " _Othello_  is about the pettiness that divides people and ruins their lives without any chance for redemption.  _Much Ado_  is about people who think they hate each other realizing that they actually like each other."

"In-depth stuff. You should teach a class."

She smiled lazily. "You know I'm right. Besides, we'd have to do a recast anyway. The new artistic director--that girl Lexa?--she'll want her people to have at least some of the starring roles."

He reached the edge of the stage and leaned against it, his elbow next to her knee. "I won't do biased casting, Clarke. They can audition same as anyone else."

She raised her head slowly and blinked down at him. "I'm just saying, working with Ground Zero is going to be hard enough. It'd be nice to make a gesture of unity." He gave her a look and she smiled resignedly. "Just try not to piss them off too much when they get here."

He'd forgotten the way she just walked into leadership roles. As though other people were simply waiting around for her to tell them what to do. He felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. "Just because your mom owns the theater doesn't mean I have to take orders from you, Princess."

He'd meant the old nickname as a jab, but it came out a little too round around the corners. Everyone had called her Princess during their run of  _The Dropship_. Even though Octavia had played the actual character, it had been obvious that Finn wrote the archetypal role with Clarke in mind. It hadn't helped that she was always ordering people around, her headset perched on her head like a crown.

Now he watched her carefully for a reaction, wondering just how cautious he was going to have to be around her.

She sighed and straightened up, glancing around the theater soberly. "I gave you free reign last season because I fucked up, but my mom still made me manager of this company." He said nothing; both of those things were true. "More importantly, I want the Ark to succeed too. If I have to step in to make that work, I will. This is the right call."

Fighting with Clarke was more straightforward than it was with anyone else: either you didn't do it, or you lost. He laid his palms flat on the edge and hauled himself up onto the stage. "Okay," he sighed, staring out into the empty seats.

He felt her smile; he felt her relax a little. "Also," she admitted, leaning in conspiratorially, "Ground Zero has no sense of humor, so I thought it might be kind of funny to put them in a comedy instead of a tragedy."

"Oh, Christ," he muttered with a laugh, rubbing his hand across his forehead. Now that Clarke was back and some of the awkwardness was out of the way, he had to think about actually putting on this shitshow. "Can you imagine Gus as Benedick? That would be incredible."

She began to swing her heels again. "With Lexa as Beatrice?"

"She'd be wooden as hell."

"Perfect."

They fell into an amiable silence, punctuated only by the tapping of her heels against the stage. Sitting next to her in the empty theater felt easy and familiar. 

He glanced at her sideways, remembering the night she left the company, wondering if she remembered much of it at all. "You know, the last time I saw you, you were closing the doors on  _The Dropship_." Her smile dropped. "Had to be done," he said gruffly, gazing up into the catwalk.

"Well, it's not going to happen with  _Much Ado_ ," she said with quiet determination. "I'm not letting this theater go under." The taps against the stage got sharper, betraying the frustration that had always lived in her, trapped under layers of stoic fortitude.

Bellamy laid his palm on her warm knee. The kicking stopped.

"Yo, Bellamy?"

Clarke jerked her leg away at the same time Bellamy dropped his hand. He'd forgotten that Raven was still in the booth. He squinted up past the lights. The control room was lit from within, and Raven was frowning at him through the window, her mouth against the mic.

"What's up, Raven?"

"Did you tell Monty he could act in this play?" She was using a tone of friendly inquiry that immediately set off alarms in Bellamy's head.

"I did, actually," Clarke said. "Why?"

"Um, because you shouldn't have done that. He can't be up there."

"He's been on stage before," Bellamy interjected defensively. "He's good. He and Jasper Meisner'd the shit out of  _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_ our first year here _._ "

"I almost forgot about that!" Clarke exclaimed with a laugh that seemed like it surprised her. "Hey, wait, I've got one." She put on a dazed voice and waved her hand dreamily in front of her face. "'The colors red, blue, and green are real. The color yellow is a mystical experience shared by everybody.'" She dropped the act and grinned at him. "Monty or Guildenstern?" 

Bellamy smiled despite himself; this was an old game. "Monty?" he hazarded.

She made a buzzer sound. "Sorry. That is an actual line out of Guildenstern's mouth."

"Christ."

Raven's magnified voice cut through the moment of relative goodwill. "Yeah, yeah, charming, nostalgia, great, I get it. Point is, who the fuck is going to be my sound guy now, Bellamy?"

"Shit. I didn't even think about that." Jumping down from the stage, Bellamy headed up the aisle. "Hold up, Raven, I'll see if I can catch him."

"Bellamy, wait." He stopped and turned around. Clarke remained where she was, staring steadily up at the booth. "I'm the one who okay-ed Monty to join the cast, so I'll replace him in the booth."

Through the window, Bellamy could see Raven fiddling with the dials on the light board, a sure sign of agitation. "Uh, Clarke, no offense, but you don't really know my system anymore. Bellamy and I will--"

"I've got a guy," Clarke insisted. "He's great. He'll do it on the cheap. It's a non-issue. Okay?"

Bellamy glanced from the booth to the stage, feeling the camaraderie bleed out of the room. Raven muttered a cut-off "Fine" into the mic.

"And Raven?" Clarke hadn't looked away yet. "This kind of thing goes through me from now on, not Bellamy. Got it?"

The two women stared each other down as all the old power plays dusted off their uniforms and filed back into the room. Raven looked away first.

"Whatever, Clarke." The booth went dark. Moments later, they heard a door slam.

Clarke's lip twisted into a wry smile, and for a second she looked a little sad. He thought about saying,  _What'd you expect?_  He thought about saying,  _What makes you think you can just pick back up where you left off?_  He thought about saying,  _Who the hell is your sound guy?_  He took a step toward her.

"Clarke--"

She shook her head as though coming out of a trance, and the sad smile vanished. "Yes. Right." She jumped down off the stage and brushed her hands together, suddenly business-like. "Tomorrow?"

The laundry list formed automatically in his mind. "Cast list, schedule, conflict meeting."

She smiled wryly. "No kidding."

"Okay, then." Raven's appearance had reminded him of the tenuous peace he was striving to maintain. He had to hold this theater together with both hands. It was time to get back to work. "See you tomorrow."

"Wait." She took a hesitant step toward him and stopped. "We need to talk about Octavia."

At the mention of his sister, his heart boarded up shop. "No." 

"Bellamy--"

"I said no."

She sighed as though dealing with a petulant child. It pissed him off to no end. "Could you try to be objective for a second? We need her for this play to work." 

He crossed his arms. "'We' don't need anything. I'm not Raven; you can't order me around."

"I don't want to. I want to work with you. But you have to put this whole Lincoln thing behind you. It's been a  _year_ , Bellamy--"

"Yeah, a year you weren't here for." The space between them stretched itself into the rafters at the anger in his voice, but she hid her surprise well. "You left too, Clarke," he reminded her. "So you don't get to tell me how to deal with my sister."

He thought for sure she would have a rejoinder to that, something about duty or rising above or whatever, but she just stared at him up the short length of the aisle, looking a little less certain. Looking just a little out of place. It made him realize how much--and maybe how permanently--things had changed. 

He turned on his heel. "I have work to do." The aisle felt steeper than normal as he walked away from her. He glanced over his shoulder. She hadn't moved. He felt his voice grow burrs and thorns. "Welcome back, Clarke."


	2. Unity Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Any day that calls itself Unity Day is ripe for irony. Ripe, I say.
> 
> This chapter features my absolute favorite thing about Bellamy and Clarke from season 2: their weird-ass telepathy. Like, Clarke has a thought, looks at Bellamy and he is automatically like "Oh hell yes, girl, give me a gun and point me in a direction, let's make some beautiful chaos."
> 
> Also, we play another round of Monty vs. Guildenstern because it is MY NEW FAVORITE GAME.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Friendship is constant in all other things  
> Save in the office and affairs of love."  
> \- Claudio, Act II, Scene i

Clarke awoke to fifteen new messages, most of which were social media related. Rolling over into her pillow, she squinted muzzily at the screen. Octavia's series of tweets glowed at her; she was tagged in most of them.  

"We're back, bitches!!! #UnityDay @lincoln-logs @clarkegriffin"

"Can't believe I get to work with my bae again!! #blessed @lincoln-logs (and @clarkegriffin!)"

"You can't spell Unity Day without U 'n I!! @lincoln-logs @clarkegriffin"

Clarke had to laugh at that last entry. Their second year at the Ark, she had accidentally explained the "C, U, 'n T" joke from  _Twelfth Night_  to Octavia. Bellamy had nearly murdered her for that one.

Speaking of Bellamy...Clarke scrolled up to the top of the page to see the newest tweet: a picture of Octavia sitting alone in a cafe, staring morosely into her cup of tea. The caption read, "Unity Day breakfast with Big Brother. :("

"Dammit, Bellamy," Clarke muttered. Tossing the phone on her pillow, she sat up and stretched, trying to reorganize her thoughts. Rehearsal started in nine hours, which meant that she had less than no time to think about Blake family politics. She needed at least the next four hours at her kitchen table with a strong cup of coffee and a binder to put together her stage manager kit. She had to remain impartial.

Turning back unwillingly, she checked her phone again.

Half an hour later, she found herself walking into the Ark, laden with disparate materials and unlabeled equipment that had built up in her apartment over the years. Coming through the double doors and breathing in the cool air was still a strange experience--it drew a confused jumble of emotions from her. After all, this was the place where she had fallen for Finn, where she had helped run her first show, where she had convinced Bellamy to stop putting on so many depressing Greek tragedies and try staging depressing Shakespearean comedies instead.

But it was also the site of  _The Dropship,_ that epic failure, which had lost the company first Lincoln and Octavia, then Finn, and then finally Clarke herself. Dumping an armful of materials onto the seats in the front row of the auditorium, she gave herself a brisk shake and headed down below the stage into the Dungeon.

The Dungeon hadn't changed a bit. A long, narrow hallway of concrete blocks painted white and lit by flickering fluorescence, it led to the dressing rooms, costume and prop room, green room, and--all the way at the end--Bellamy's office.

It took a solid minute of knocking before he opened the door, his curly hair tousled and his clothes rumpled. He glared blearily down at her, all surliness and creative brooding.

"Good morning," she said briskly.

"Clarke? The hell are you doing here?" He rubbed a hand through his hair, making it stick up further. "It's nine a.m."

"We still need to talk about Octavia."

His mouth tightened. "I'm working. Go away." He started to close the door in her face, but she was expecting that and managed to wedge her foot in first.

"I know you slept here last night," she said quickly, pushing the door open and holding up a change of clothes and a cup of black coffee. "So I brought you these."

His expression told her he was sorely tempted to reject the offer on principle alone. When she wafted the coffee under his nose, though, he folded like a Midwestern community theater that only performs Brecht. Swinging the door wide, he let her in.

Bellamy's office was small, with just enough room for a desk, a chair, and a threadbare couch that had been old when Nixon was in office. Clarke sat gingerly on the couch as he turned his back to her and stripped off his shirt. There was a mirror by the desk and she could see his bare chest reflected there. She looked prudently down at her hands.

"So talk," he said gruffly, pulling on the black T-shirt she'd brought him. He didn't ask where she'd gotten it; three years of cast parties at each other's houses had led to a Lost and Found of sorts in their respective closets.

"I still follow your sister on Twitter, Bellamy, I know she hasn't worked at the Ark since you kicked her off of  _The Dropship_. I'm the one who told her she could come back for this, so I need to know if we're going to have a problem."

Bellamy sighed, and Clarke heard his belt hit the floor as he dropped his pants. "I didn't kick her out. You were still there then, you know she was free to stay."

"Right. You just kicked her boyfriend out."

When she was sure he'd pulled his new pants on, she raised her eyes. His back was still to her, but the tense way he held his shoulders broadcast his anger clearly. "Because he was spying on us for the Grounders? Yeah. I did."

"He wasn't  _spying_..."

"He was sent there to sabotage our show, and it worked!"

"Because  _you_  fired him! He was one of us by then!"

"Only because he was plowing my little sister!" he shouted, banging his fist on the desk.

Clarke shut her mouth. She hadn't expected the outburst to come quite so quickly, but Bellamy always had a short fuse when it came to Octavia. After a moment, he turned the desk chair around and sat down, facing her. He laced his hands together on his knees and took a deep breath.

"Octavia can always come back here, Clarke. She knows that."

"As long as she breaks up with Lincoln?"

"That'd do it."

Clarke shook her head. "Don't you think he's kind of proven himself at this point? Ground Zero won't take him back anyway and he loves Octavia. He'd do anything for her. You have to let your sister make her own choices without punishing her for them all the time."

Bellamy's lip curled in disgust. "Did you know he's a junkie?" Clarke faltered, and he snorted a humorless laugh. "Of course not," he muttered bitterly. "Octavia would never post something like that on Twitter. It would go against her whole image."

Clarke tried to picture Lincoln as an addict. She had only worked with him for a few months on  _The Dropship_  before Bellamy kicked him out, but he had been a large, quiet man who struck her as both thoughtful and kind.

"How long has he been sober?" she murmured, and Bellamy's expression told her it was the right question to ask.

"Four months, but that's not the point, Clarke." He looked down and cleared his throat. "There was a--a situation around Christmas. In a parking garage. She had to call me to come get her." His expression darkened at the memory. "He's not safe. As far as I know, he'll never be safe."

Clarke sighed. "I'm sorry, Bellamy, but this is something you're just going to have to work through. Lincoln and Octavia are our bridge to Ground Zero. If we don't have them, we don't have anything." She gave her voice the finality of a curtain dropping. "I'm bringing them back in."

He stared at her long and hard, his jaw clenched. She waited for the inevitable argument, but it didn't come. "I hope you know what you're doing," he said finally, his voice low and rough.

"I do."

"Because I'm trying to do what's best for Octavia, too."

"I know that."

After a moment, he sat back in his chair, reaching over his shoulder for the coffee cup on the desk. "Fine. But I get to do the casting." 

She leaned forward, her hands folded on her lap. It was just negotiating now. This was familiar territory. "We'll  _agree_  on the casting. I'm not letting you run wild with this."

He sipped his coffee. "Right, like you ran wild with the headsets during  _Lysistrata_."

"Monty's hearing came back like, the next day!" But she relaxed as he dropped his head, grinning. For a moment it was like the first day of any other show, with the morning devoted to fighting Bellamy and the evening consisting of the two of them trying to parent the cast. But then she remembered that it couldn't be like that anymore. They'd have to work together every step of the way or they'd lose Ground Zero, and Mount Weather would tear them into bits.

 _Unity Day, indeed,_  she thought with a mental sigh.

"We'll do the show I want to do," Bellamy reminded her as he took another sip, just a note of challenge in his voice.

"We're already not doing the show you want to do."

"Then I should be able to cast it how I like."

She slumped sideways into the couch, laying her head plaintively on the armrest. "Can you just...not piss off everyone while you do this? Please? I don't ask for many things."

She could still make him smile at least, that slow, reluctant smile that he couldn't seem to stop. It decanted a quiet happiness in her. "We got the Grounders' donors, right?" he pressed, leaning back in his seat. "We already have the support we need?"

"Yes. So?"

"So I don't get why you're worried. The theater is already saved."

"Not if someone commits a  _murder_  in it!"

"Oh, right," he murmured, rubbing his hand over his mouth. "That's a good point."

"Thank you." His eyes traveled over her face, amused. She looked away. "We should probably get moving."

"And more coffee," Bellamy added, draining his cup. "Rehearsal's not for another eight-and-a-half hours."

"Eight hours and twenty-three minutes." She pushed herself to her feet, tapping her watch, which had belonged to her father and was therefore always right. "Let's get to work."

********************************

Jasper was the first to arrive that evening, with Monty on his heels. They were both panting and shoving each other to get through the doors to the house. Bellamy and Clarke sat next to each other on the edge of the stage, each on their fourth cup of coffee, poring over the schedule between them.

"Dogberry?" Jasper and Monty called together. With an amused smile, Bellamy nudged his chin toward the Dungeon, where the call board was hung. The boys went tearing off toward it and disappeared through the swinging doors.

Bellamy brought his mug up to his lips. "5...4...3...2...1..."

"Dogberry!" Jasper's ringing triumph leaked out into the house.

"Verges!" Monty crowed. There was the sound of them high-fiving themselves.

Bellamy took a sip of coffee. "Toldja."

"You'd think Monty would get tired of playing the sidekick," Clarke insisted, but she passed Bellamy the five bucks without complaint.

The rest of the cast trickled in slowly, and most of the reactions to the cast list were less enthusiastic. To make room for Grounders in half the roles, many of the usual stars had been significantly reduced in prestige. Miller had been bumped from the stage entirely, Sterling had walked after finding out he and Monroe were bit roles, and Harper felt miscast as Leonato, the oldest man in the play. Only Murphy seemed happy, seeing as he was playing the villainous bastard, Don John.

"Remember, guys, there are no small roles," Clarke reminded everyone encouragingly as they took their seats in the front few rows.

"Only awesome roles and less awesome roles," smirked Don John Murphy, the bastard.

"Only small actors," Bellamy growled. Clarke bit back a disapproving remark. She knew why he was tense, and she couldn't help feeling some of that anxiety herself.

"Hey Monty," she called, cutting through the dissatisfied chatter. "I've got one for you." The house quieted quickly. She waited for their full attention--she might not be an actor anymore, but she still knew how to command a stage. "'I'd like to give the Earth a giant hug,'" she quoted finally. "Guildenstern or Monty?"

It worked like a charm. "Guildenstern!" Miller guessed immediately, his bad mood temporarily set aside. Jasper hung his elbow off the back of his seat and shook his head derisively.

"That's a Montyism if I ever heard one," he assured the cast. "Trust me on this, people."

"I think so too," Monty said uncertainly. The best part of this game had always been getting Monty's guess, as he was--somehow, inexplicably--almost always wrong.

Bellamy glanced at Clarke with an eyebrow raised, silently wondering himself. She gave him a patient look.  _It's obviously Monty._  He nodded thoughtfully as though she'd written the answer down on a note card and handed it to him.

"It is, in fact, Monty," he announced with a shrug, and no one looked more surprised by that than Monty himself.

"Another!" Jasper called eagerly. The cast looked up at the stage, waiting, expectant. Clarke couldn't help the warmth blooming in her chest. These were her people, and oh, how she'd missed them.

"All right," she conceded. "'I can't change the tide if the moon won't cooperate.'"

Ponderous looks were traded. 

"What do we get if we guess it right?" Murphy demanded, ever the mercenary of the group.

Bellamy spoke up first. "If you guys guess the right answer, Clarke and I will buy everyone drinks after tonight's rehearsal." She whipped her head to gape at him and his patient expression said  _Chill_. "If you guess wrong, you all have to scrape off the tape from last season-- _without_  pulling up the paint on the stage."

"Nooooooo," Harper groaned. Jasper turned around and shushed her.

"Shut up, Harper! Mom and Dad want to buy us drinks! Don't make them remember that we're--" He glanced furtively at the stage and then mouthed  _[underage]_ with great exaggeration.

The cast members leaned in toward each other to convene, and Clarke settled down. Not only was this a pretty good deal, but she admired, as always, Bellamy's natural leadership. He was painting the two of them as a team, a unit to be respected and listened to no matter what. She was grateful for that.

"It's Guildenstern, isn't it?" Monroe asked in a hushed tone, as though afraid to give away her position. 

"Definitely," said Monty confidently. "I would remember saying something like that."

"No you wouldn't," Miller sighed. 

"I think it's Monty," Jasper demurred. "Sounds like one of his pickup lines."

"No, that was the pine cone incident," Raven's voice interjected from overhead. 

Clarke leaned in close to Bellamy while they bickered. "This is better than warm-ups," she observed. He turned his mouth to her ear, his breath warm through the strands of her hair.

"It's Monty though, right?" he whispered.

She turned her face to meet his gaze, grinning. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Okay," Jasper called, standing up like a jury foreman. "We have an answer for you. We're pretty sure it's--"

A metallic clanking cut him off, and the double doors in the back of the house swung open. Clarke straightened up as all of the members of Ground Zero strode in together. At the front of the pack with a hard look in her eye was Lexa ("Lexa what?" Bellamy had asked earlier as he wrote up the cast list, but neither of them had known, leading him to pencil "AKA Cher" in the margin). Behind Lexa strode her lackeys, Indra and Gus. And behind them...

Bellamy stiffened and Clarke tracked his gaze. Octavia was walking hand-in-hand with Lincoln, dressed in what Bellamy dismissively referred to as "Grounder Garb." She wore a sleeveless shirt, showing off a couple of tribal tattoos Clarke hadn't realized she'd gotten. Her lids were thickly rimmed with dark eyeliner, and her hair was swept back in a deluge of intricate braids.

Bellamy was gripping the edge of the stage so hard his knuckles were white, and Clarke very gently covered his hand with her own. He glanced down at her, his mouth a hard line, and nodded once. His fingers relaxed a bit and she let go.

The motley group stopped in the middle of the center aisle as Lexa's eyes swept from person to person, taking in the space as though it were a battleground and she had an exciting new idea for a blitzkrieg. After all the sabotage and badmouthing over the last few years, it might just come to that. Jasper had hastily retaken his seat. People shifted uneasily in their chairs. The Grounders flexed their knuckled fists.

The theater took a collective breath.

Then Octavia stepped forward with the world's sunniest smile and yelled, "What up, bitches?" and Clarke suddenly remembered why she thought this was going to work.

The tension broke, and Raven began playing "Eye of the Tiger" over the speaker system at a decibel too loud to allow for brawling. Jasper and Monty flew from their seats to hug Octavia, who held her arms wide to encompass them both.

"Turn that down!" Bellamy yelled, obviously glad to have something to shout about. Raven cut the music, voicing pointedly that since she was  _not_  the sound guy, it wasn't her job to understand the volume controls.

There was a moment of hanging silence. The Grounders all stood in a cluster in the middle of the aisle, expressionless as steel. Octavia approached the stage cautiously, leaving Lincoln to hang back.  _Smart man,_  Clarke thought.

"Hey, Bell," she said gently, in the tone one might use on a skittish dog. "Like what you've done with the place."

"Octavia." Bellamy made no move to join his sister on the floor. He was staring at her intently, a muscle jumping in his jaw. After years of watching that expression precede a hurtful comment that he'd ultimately regret, Clarke knew when intervention was required. Jumping down off the stage, she stepped in.

"Welcome back, Octavia." They exchanged a brief hug. "Go take a look at the cast list."

The Grounders headed down to the Dungeon as a unit, and when Octavia and Lincoln returned, neither of them looked as excited as Clarke had imagined.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Octavia said unconvincingly without meeting her eye. "I'm happy to understudy for Indra. She could teach me a lot."

"But Indra's not...You and Lincoln are playing Claudio and Hero..."

"...'s understudies, yeah, I saw."

The Grounders went to take their seats. Clarke turned on Bellamy, who remained sitting on the edge of the stage with an expression that told her he'd been incrementally preparing for an explosion.

"You changed the cast list?" she demanded furiously. "I thought we agreed that Octavia and Lincoln should be the romantic stability of this production!"

He gave her an infuriatingly patient look. "No, we agreed that they'd be good as Claudio and Hero."

"Not as their  _understudies_."

"They're both in the show," he insisted. "In my book, that still counts."

"If we were going off of your book, I'd burn my study to the ground," she riposted scathingly.

"Well, it's good to know you've ready the play, at least."

"Enough." Lexa's voice was calmly authoritative as she lowered herself into her seat. "We've found your terms acceptable. Although your casting is a little strange."

"If you don't like it, you can leave," Bellamy suggested. Still ready to clock him with her 800-pound binder, Clarke forced herself to count to ten instead. Fighting with Bellamy in front of the Grounders would give them the worst possible impression. "Clarke's going to pass out schedules, conflict forms, and scripts." He nudged his chin at her dismissively. "In the meantime, we're going to talk theme."

Still seething at his treachery, Clarke moved into the aisles, thrusting material into people's laps as Bellamy explained his casting choices.  _Much Ado_  centered around two couples, both of them pretty standard to Shakespeare. Benedick and Beatrice bickered and pretended not to like each other until the moment that they decided to get married. Claudio and Hero were less palatable. Hero was demur and sweet, making it pretty heinous for Claudio to swallow Don John's lies about her fidelity and toss her aside.

"The relationships in this play are gross and heteronormative as fuck," Bellamy said, who was about as heteronormative as any person alive. "So we'll be messing with them."

Clarke glanced up and was surprised to see that while Lexa was facing Bellamy, her sharp green eyes were carefully tracking Clarke as she wove along the aisles. She didn't look away when Clarke met her gaze. Feeling uneasy and a little flushed, Clarke turned determinedly back to the stage as Bellamy explained that Lexa would play Benedick, and Fox (who did not seem pleased by the promotion) would play Beatrice. Diminutive, subservient Hero would be played by Gus, while masculine Claudio would be played by the admittedly pitch-perfect Indra.

"Why two women for the romance?" Miller asked.

"Why the hell not?" Lexa replied without looking at him. She was still studying Clarke in a thoughtful, dissecting sort of way.

"Because we might bring some actual critical thought to this play," Bellamy overrode. "Also, it'll make lines like Beatrice saying 'I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me' pretty funny."

The gigantic brick wall that was Gustus did not seem to find irony amusing. His arms folded, he tilted his head down toward Lexa. "Is he mocking us, Hedda?" he rumbled.

Lexa finally moved her gaze from Clarke. Her expression was flat and unreadable. "That's something we'll find out," she said in perfectly audible tones. "We will not be insulted."

"Insulted?" Miller turned in his seat to glare at her. "Lady, I've been cut from this entire show while that dick Murphy gets to play a lead role. We're all being insulted here."

"Yeah, why  _is_  Murphy in this show?" Jasper called. "Last time you let him come back, he gave everybody mono."

The grumbling hordes voiced their agreement.

"Not me!" Octavia reminded everyone smugly. 

 _Well this is going well,_  Clarke thought grimly. "Miller," she called patiently, realizing this was the time to redirect focus. Heads turned. "You're still in this show. You're working under me."

He brightened a little. "Assistant Stage Manager?"

"More like Assistant  _to_  the Stage Manager," Bellamy smirked, lobbing a grin her way. She ignored it with the greatest disdain.

"Absolutely. Now. Anyone who wants to discuss their role with Bellamy, you can speak to him on the stage. Anyone who has scheduling conflicts, come with me, please."

A trail of people trudging behind her, she headed up the aisle to her usual seat. It was far back enough that she could make sure that the actors were using proper projection, but not so far back that she couldn't feed them lines. There was nothing unusual or noteworthy about it, other than that it was the seat she always chose, so she was startled on her arrival to find that someone had taped a small sign to the top of the chair.

 _Princess_ , it said in scrawled black Sharpie. 

She glanced over her shoulder at Bellamy, but he was already engaging the mob. He didn't look up.

"Okay," she said, turning to her own cluster and opening her binder to the correct page. "Who's first?"

"I am." Lexa stepped forward regally, her hands clasped behind her back. 

How strange it was, to have Ground Zero standing peaceably in her theater, calmly awaiting her cooperation. 

Clarke crafted a neutral tone. "What can I do for you?"

Lexa inclined her head. "I wish to speak with you for a moment."

Clarke's casts had never picked up their cues correctly on the first try, but this time they did, melting away into the seats before Clarke could say a word. She and Lexa stood for a moment, measuring each other up. They were nearly of a height, and they would have stood eye to eye if Clarke weren't further up the aisle.

"This casting is a joke," Lexa said baldly as soon as they were alone. "Bellamy can't seriously think that role swapping and a same-sex romance are a good way to fill seats."

"Shakespeare wasn't new to gender-bending," Clarke replied evenly. "Bellamy's trying to make this show unique. He has a vision, and we follow that vision."

"It isn't going to work."

"Casting and portrayal choices can be taken up with him," Clarke frowned, deflecting the criticism only partially because she was privately afraid of the same thing. "I'm the business side of this equation."

"That's why I'm speaking to you. You have to know, Clarke, that my donors are only going to back this theater if they think it's a good investment."

Clarke's heart stumbled in her chest. "What are you talking about? I thought this was a done deal." She took a step forward into Lexa's space. "Lincoln  _told_  me this was a done deal."

Lexa stared at her steadily. "The sponsors will be attending the first show. If turn-out is poor, there is a chance they will pull their support. This production  _has_  to do well. Immediately."

"Why is this the first I'm hearing about it?"

For the first time since she had walked in, Lexa hesitated. "Some of my staff felt it would be unwise to tell you. I disagreed. We need each other, so we must trust each other." Her lips stretched in a humorless smile. "To a point." 

Clarke was still fighting down the rising panic. "Have you told Bellamy?"

"No. And I am asking you to keep it to yourself."

She shook her head and backed away. "That's not going to happen. Are you kidding me? Lexa, how could you not tell us about this?" 

Flinging the binder onto her seat, Clarke started down the aisle, snapping her fingers in the air to grab Bellamy's attention. Lexa caught her by the shoulder and spun her around, gripping her arm so tightly that numbness spread all the way to her fingers. Up on the brightly lit stage, laughter broke up the babble of voices, and conversation continued uninterrupted. Down in the deep shadows of the house, Lexa leveled Clarke with a measured stare. 

"I didn't want you backing out of the deal." She lowered her voice and took a step in urgently. "I knew that you were the one to speak to about this. You will keep a level head. We have nowhere to go but forward. Together. Please, Clarke."

Clarke felt herself soften. It wasn't the flattery per se; it was just that Lexa's were the first words she'd heard so far that expressed any confidence in her and her ability to help lead the company. She hesitated. Lexa had a sharp face and clever eyes. These were dangerous waters. 

"You were supposed to guarantee us funding," she said finally, refusing to cave.

"And  _you_  were supposed to guarantee us a successful show," Lexa shot back. "As long as you provide your end, we'll provide ours." 

"I have to at least tell Bellamy. We're a team."

Lexa took another step toward her, but less aggressively this time. It was coupled with a slow, calculated look up and down Clarke's body. "You're the leader here," she murmured. "It would be unwise to display weakness. You know what's best for this theater. You must act alone sometimes to get it."

Clarke frowned. "Bellamy wants what's best for the Ark too. You don't know him."

Lexa's eyes flickered away from Clarke's face and over her shoulder, toward the stage. At that moment, like a temporarily distracted mother who has just realized her toddler has been quiet for too long, Clarke recognized the sounds of discord building behind her.

"It's  _not_  an insult, because being a woman isn't a bad thi--fuck! No! Cut it-- _fuck_!"

Clarke turned just in time to see the cast scatter across the stage in various forms of attempted escape. Some people vaulted over the edge, while others thundered down the steps, shoving each other out of the way. The exodus exposed a knot of four people brawling in the middle of the stage.

She cursed and ran, following hot on Lexa's heels as she sprinted up the aisle, darting against the current of fleeing actors.

Murphy was grappling with Gustus; the larger man's brutal hands were closed around his neck and very persistently starting to  _squeeze_. Clarke zeroed in there, yelling wordlessly over the din in an attempt to make it all stop. She grabbed Gustus by the arm and yanked, but he didn't even seem to notice her. Indra flew into her from the side, ricocheting off her and shoving her roughly in the shoulder. Clarke tumbled to the floor, banging her chin on the boards and splitting her lip.

"Hold up!" Lexa barked from the floor, and the chaos overhead ceased like magic. Murphy fell to his knees next to her, gasping and holding his throat.

Clarke pulled herself to a kneeling position as she heard scuffling, grunting, and the dull  _smack_  of a final thrown punch. Indra went down, sprawled on the floor. Standing over her, his knuckles cracked and bleeding, was Bellamy.

 _Dammit dammit dammit._  She raised her eyes to his, shaking her head.  _This is so bad, Bellamy,_ she thought, and he nodded, breathing hard. His eyes fell to her mouth, concern diffusing some of the anger in his expression.  _Your lip, though._

She ran her tongue over it and tasted blood. Indra rolled to her feet like an angry cat, her dark gaze full of murder. Her hands were balled into fists but she stood obediently, glaring at Bellamy.

"This is not how we will conduct ourselves," Lexa said evenly, her voice cold and commanding. Her gaze lingered on Bellamy, and then moved to Clarke as though to say  _Hm._  "I don't care what provoked it; I do not want to see violence in this building for the run of this play. That is the end of the discussion."

 _She could walk,_  Clarke realized.  _And we'd be screwed._ She waited for someone to mention that out loud, but Lexa had nothing else to say, and Clarke found an immense gratitude expanding in her. Time to do her part, then.

"If anyone does something like this again," she called, staggering to her feet. "And I mean  _anyone_ , they're out. Out of this show, out of this theater, out of this program." She made her way down the steps to stand by Lexa, her gaze sweeping the seats and then moving back up to the stage. "I don't care if you're from the Ark or Ground Zero. We're a team now. If you can't play on the team, you leave."

She locked eyes with Bellamy and his mouth bent downward in displeasure. He was clenching and unclenching his fists, blood leaking down the knuckles and dripping onto the stage.  _I can't believe you took her side._

She didn't look away.  _There are no more sides._

In the swinging silence, the sound of the house doors opening was startlingly loud. All heads turned to the back, where a teenage girl was standing awkwardly, holding a pink bakery box in both hands.

"Uh...hi?" she called softly, and even that seemed to echo. "I'm Maya Vie? The intern?" Everyone stared. She held up the box. "I brought cake."


	3. Rehearsal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I made the nerdiest fucking Trigadasleng joke in this chapter. I'm sorry/you're welcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "If it proves so, then loving goes by haps:  
> Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps."  
> \- Hero, Act III, Scene i

Kyle Wick walked into the Ark for the first time to the sound of exhilarated whooping. As that had never been an entirely good sign in his experience, he opened the double doors with a measure of caution.

A scrawny kid with a mop of dark hair was sprawled out on the stage, a rope swaying back and forth above his spread-eagle body. He was giggling hysterically.

"Dude," came a voice from the catwalks. "This time Seth Rollins, right? Get ready."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Wick called with an abortive start down the aisle, but it was too late. A second kid came swinging down onto the stage and went into a flying freefall, diving straight into his friend. He landed on top of him with a  _whump_  that Wick could hear from the back of the house.

"MONTY, WHAT THE SHITTING FUCK?!"

The boys scrambled to their feet, wheezing with laughter and brushing off their clothes. "No one's hurt, Raven!" the one called Monty said hastily. "We're just practicing our WWE moves."

An angry woman with a swinging ponytail and a red jacket came charging up the stage and pushed Monty aside with a palm to the chest. "I wasn't talking about you dicktwizzlers, I'm talking about the  _lights_. Jasper, I swear to god, if that Fresnel is loose again..."

Muttering darkly, she jammed what looked like a Bowie knife and a whole coil of wire between her teeth, hauled herself up the ladder, and disappeared into the catwalks. Wick noticed that she moved with a limp, but it didn't seem to slow her down much.

"We're fine by the way, thanks for asking, Raven!" Jasper called after her.

"Yeah, and what is a shitting fuck, exactly? Is that in the Kama Sutra?"

"You'll never get to find out if I catch you swinging on those ropes again!" Raven shot back from overhead. 

Jasper folded his arms belligerently. He and Monty exchanged sympathetic glances that seemed to shore up his resolve. "Y'know," he called, "it's not our fault Bellamy wouldn't put us on wires for the flying scenes in  _Peter Pan._ We've been robbed of an essential stage experience. It's a tragedy!"

Monty tugged at his elbow. "Dude, we never did  _Peter Pan._ "

"Which is part of the  _tragedy_ , Monty, jeez." 

Their hands thrust morosely in their pockets, the two turned and shuffled into the back wings. Praying that he was safe from further amateur acrobatics, Wick made his way cautiously up to the stage.

Raven, no more than a brunette ponytail dangling precariously from the catwalk, was the only person in sight. Wick craned his head up to see her better.

"Excuse me?"

She didn't look away from the light she was working on. "What."

"Sorry, I'm looking for Clarke Griffin? But you're...not her."

The dangling ponytail finally swung itself around, and he was suddenly faced with large doe eyes directly above his head.  _Unfriendly_  doe eyes. "What do you want?"

"Uh, she said something about running tech for her show..." He hitched his thumb over his shoulder. "But I can go look for her somewhere else..."

" _You're_  the new sound guy?" she asked with a disbelieving smile that might be categorized as insulting.

"Sound technician and engineer," he corrected, feeling some of his uncertainty burn away. 

"Oh. Engi _neer_." She rolled her eyes and turned back to the Fresnel. 

"You the mechanic or something?"

She grunted a laugh as she turned the ratchet. "Hey, a C-clamp needs tightening, I'm the girl for the job."

"Wick!" a familiar voice called, and he turned to see Clarke coming up the stage steps, trailed by that Ground Zero girl who had once glued a plastic gear to her face, lit a pile of logs on fire, and spoken fluently in a language she made up herself for an hour and a half. Shadowing her closely was a giant, bearded tree of a man.

"Hey, Clarke," Wick waved. "And...Lexa, right? I ran one of your shows last year."

Lexa ignored him. "I'm not denying that my people have been given prominent roles," she said persistently to Clarke's back, "but all the comedic parts have been given to your own." She caught Clarke's wrist, pulling her to a halt. "There have been complaints from my people."

Clarke turned to her patiently, gently extracting her hand. Her gaze moved to the hulking man behind Lexa. "We're talking about you here, aren't we, Gustus?"

Lexa's mouth flattened, a dead giveaway that Clarke was right. Gustus stepped in front of her with a grim air. "Lexa went against the will of many people to save your theater. Some of us believe that we shouldn't have gotten involved. That we should have just let you fail."

"So leave," Raven muttered overhead.

Clarke looked supremely unperturbed as he loomed over her. "You should do something about your people, Lexa. Because I'm not changing the cast list." Wick smothered a grin as he watched a grudging respect flicker in Lexa's cool green eyes. 

"Stand down, Gustus." Lexa waved him away and he retreated like a sullen mongrel into the wings. "Is it that you do not trust us to accurately portray comedy?" she asked, a trifle petulantly.

 _Made. Up. Language_ , Wick thought to himself.

Clarke remained patiently intractable. "Lexa, that has nothing to do with it. Jasper was  _born_  to play Dogberry. He practically invented malapropism."

As if on cue, Jasper came sprinting out of the Dungeon, laughing and throwing glances over his shoulder. As he reached the stage and spotted the group, he sobered quickly and slowed to a nonchalant stroll.

"Heyyyy, Clarke," he panted. "Don't worry. Nothing's on fire. Monty is fine. Maya is definitely not involved. Do you think she's kinda cute by the way? Someone was saying she's kinda cute and I was thinking--"

"Jasper, are you ready for rehearsal today?" Clarke sighed before he could go further.

He smiled brightly. "Of course! I mesmerized all my lines like an hour ago."

Above their heads, Raven started laughing. Clarke turned to Lexa with a tired gesture. "Exhibit A."

"Now, uh..." Jasper was peering down toward the Dungeon again, looking jumpy. "I just need to find a thing for a thing that--again!--is completely 100% not on fire."

"Fire extinguisher's in Bellamy's office," Clarke called after him as he disappeared back the way he came.

"You shouldn't move the safety shit around, Clarke," Raven muttered. "Other people won't be able to find it."

Clarke crossed her arms over her chest. "I put it there so that Monty and Jasper would have to deal with Bellamy anytime they do something stupid. Seemed like a good deterrent."

Right on cue, they heard a muffled "Are you fucking KIDDING me?" from below.

Clarke turned to Wick with a smile. "Sorry about this. First day of rehearsal and all--you know how it is."

" _Our_  first rehearsals rarely involve fire," Lexa noted.

"No, but your  _performances_  have more than I'm comfortable with," Wick muttered. Raven snorted, and he grinned up at her through the catwalk. 

Clarke gave him a stern look. "So, normally Bellamy would run the actors through their lines in the black box and I'd work with you in here, but Ground Zero prefers to integrate light and sound with their performances from the get-go."

"It encourages atmospheric reactions," Lexa added serenely.

Clarke's mouth was doing a stellar job of trying not to smile. "Think you can figure stuff out on the fly?"

Wick rubbed his hands together. "Sure thing. Who's my lights guy?"

"Yo." Raven was coming back down the ladder, slowly and carefully. She hit the stage and turned to face him. "Get ready for boot camp, boy."

She had the look about her of someone who rarely smiles, but who enjoys it when she does. She was wearing one glove, and a coil of cable was wrapped around her bicep. Her tool belt was riding low across one hip and he realized that he was going to be playing second fiddle the entirety of this show. He couldn't work up the energy to be disappointed about it, though. Who wouldn't play Chewbacca if they had a chance to ride with Han Solo? He pulled his heels together and ticked off a lazy salute.

"Sir, yes sir." 

 

Wick spent the next hour getting acquainted with Raven's setup ("This is the trapdoor. You do not touch the trapdoor" was lesson one) and learning why he had been brought on board ("Monty abandoned me, but you will use his line check or you will sit in the corner" was lesson two).

He liked the way she ran things in the booth. He'd never seen someone arrange cues on the spot as the rehearsal unfolded on the stage. There was a fly-by-the-seat of your pants energy to it that he enjoyed, that he wanted to keep up with, as she painted the back wall with soft pastels. There was also organization to her chaos. Seemingly random cables lay draped across the soundboard, but she smacked his hand when he went to move them, so for the first part of the rehearsal he just watched.

It was the weirdest first act he'd ever sat through. In fact, he wasn't entirely certain the Grounders had read the play, or any play for that matter. 

The run started fine; Fox and Harper were Beatrice and Leonato, playing family members to each other okay, even with the sullen slab of Gustus sulking just behind them, doing a terrible job as Beatrice's cousin Hero. But from the first moment that Indra, Nyko, and Lexa mounted the stage as the male romantic leads, the power dynamic was as far from romantic as it was possible to be.

Indra/Claudio, who was supposed to be immediately taken with Gustus, was looking at him as though she'd like to bet on him in an underground fighting ring. Maybe, Wick thought, that was her way of expressing interest. Lexa/Benedick, who was supposed to be in love with Fox/Beatrice, was staring hard into the wings, her fists clenched woodenly at her sides.

Harper/Leonato met the troupe with a brave face, focusing on Nyko/Don Pedro, the only engaged presence. "'Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of  your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.'" Her cue there was to embrace Hero like a father would. Harper looked up Gustus's imposing chest to his bearded scowl and gave him a feeble pat on the arm instead.

"'You embrace your charge too willingly," Nyko said with such wry amusement that Wick heard Clarke chuckle into the headset. "'I think this is your daughter.'"

"Well, Nyko's good anyway," Wick murmured, watching as Raven adjusted the faders, pulling warmer and warmer tones onto the stage. It was a moot gesture.

"Harper's not usually bad. She's just intimidated." Raven shrugged. "Which isn't the worst way to play the character."

Lexa wasn't helping that particular problem. "'If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not  have his head on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is,'" she bit out in a disgusted voice. Her tractor-beam eyes landed on Fox and stayed there.

"'I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick,'" Fox recited bravely as Lexa stared her down. "'N-nobody marks you.'"

Lexa took a step toward her. "'What, my dear Lady Disdain!'" she demanded coldly, "'are you yet living?'" 

"Stop!" Bellamy called in exasperation from his seat in the front row, ending it where Wick was just beginning to get interested. "Lexa, are you threatening to kill our Beatrice?"

Lexa shrugged. "She shouldn't have flinched. It shows weakness."

Through the headset, Bellamy muttered, "Raven, drop her through the trapdoor for me, would you?"

"Sure thing, boss," Raven grinned. Wick glanced at her. She covered the mouthpiece and pointed at the switchboard. "Don't worry, I only do it to people when I want to put the fear of God into them."

He couldn't tell if she was kidding or not. "You're Catholic, aren't you."

Her smile sharpened. "Just my mom. My belief system is all me."

He raised an eyebrow. "Sign me up."

"Show me some passion, show me some  _conflict_ ," Bellamy had resumed below. He stood and began to pace, gesturing from Lexa to Fox. "Look, you want to fight her, but you don't want to win. There has to be tension between what you want and what you pretend to want."

Lexa stared at him blankly. "Theater is about pure expression. I should mean what I say. This play would be better with sincerity rather than insipid and toothless banter."

Wick could see that Bellamy was a person who didn't respond to outside pressure so much as he had internal pressure constantly boiling inside him. "Clarke!"

"Take five everyone!" Clarke called immediately, dialing the tension down by half as she stood up from her seat. 

"Thank you, five," most of the cast replied, but no one besides Indra got up and left. Wick was surprised they weren't eating popcorn while they watched the stage.

"Raven," Clarke muttered into her mic as she jogged up the aisle, "Do something about the lighting for when we pick this back up."

Raven passed Wick an outraged look, and he shrugged his general agreement. "What the hell does that mean?" she growled into the headset. "I'm testing out the lights while we do this. You literally can't expect anything else from me, you egomaniacal control freak!"

Wick cleared his throat."If I could make a suggestion..."

"No," she snapped. "I don't need suggestions from sound engineers. That lighting was perfect for the mood. It was light, it was all pinks and yellows, it was fucking  _frothy_. Lexa's just playing it like a lead ball. Instead of making me work around her, you could just fire her."

Down in the house, Clarke shook her head and said nothing. Wick yanked his headset down around his neck and leaned over to do the same to Raven's. She startled back.

"Hey, what the hell, man?"

"Look, I'm with you," he said quickly, rolling his chair away from her. "But I think Clarke meant do something for Lexa to make her back down a little. Put a hard white spotlight on her, make her uncomfortable. Put soft lighting on Fox--make her look pretty and young."

Raven's mouth opened and then closed again. He could see scenarios playing out on her quick, clever face. She looked at the faders then back at him, shaking her head like an annoyed horse shrugging off a fly. "Don't be stupid. We should be lighting for the show, not helping out actors who aren't good enough to be up there." She paused, rolling her chair thoughtfully back and forth, one hand gripping the edge of the control board. "But that isn't the worst suggestion in the world."

Down on the stage, Clarke was standing very close to Lexa and speaking to her urgently. She'd taken off her headset and the mic had gotten tangled in her braid. Lexa disengaged it as she listened, nodding her understanding as she stared into Clarke's eyes with a considerably softer expression.

From his seat, Bellamy was watching the two like a hawk. After a few minutes he twirled one hand over his head. "Okay, let's run it again."

Clarke's headset came back on like Darth Vader's helmet. "What'd you say to Lexa?" Wick murmured into his mic as she descended the stairs.

"I told her to look at Fox like she just saw a steak one month after going vegetarian."

They ran it again. Raven put a hard white light on Lexa. Lexa gave Fox a hungry look that was disconcerting but not overtly threatening. It was better.

"That was better," Bellamy said grudgingly. 

"Fuckin' teamwork," Wick grinned and turned to Raven who, to his surprise, was actually smiling. 

Bellamy didn't seem interested in stopping to celebrate. "Let's move through the rest of the act. And I want to hear how it sounds miked this time, at least at first, so get that working, Raven."

"On it."

Wick muscled her aside in order to speak into the mic. "Actually, Bellamy..." He could sense Raven admiring his audacity by the way she punched him in the shoulder. 

Bellamy peered up at the booth, shielding his eyes with one hand. "Oh, right. Sound guy. Hello to you too. I want the leads audible everywhere but not noticeable anywhere, okay?"

"Got it, boss."

Raven wrestled the mic away from him. "Ignore the braying jackass. I got this."

Wick closed his fist over the grill and raised his eyebrows at her. He held it until she relinquished her grasp. "And I can set up a horse cue for Don Pedro's arrival," he offered, his gaze still politely challenging Raven.  _[You can not,]_  she mouthed. In response, he held up his phone with a whole playlist of Foley effects titled  _Standard Shakespeare Noise._

"Good," Bellamy called absently. "Do it."

"Kiss-ass," Raven muttered, rolling her chair back. Wick grinned and got to work setting up the balance for the four mics. 

"I'd like to start already!" Bellamy shouted, seemingly to the room at large. He took the stairs up to the stage two at a time and gazed out into the house. "Where the hell is Indra? She's in this scene."

The Grounders in the front row all made a studious attempt to not meet his gaze, except for Lexa, who seemed unperturbed. "She'll be here."

"In the meantime," Clarke jumped in, stepping out from the wing to stand next to Bellamy. She pulled her headset mic away from her mouth. "Octavia can stand in for her."

It was like she'd lit a fire under the girl. Octavia jumped up and nearly flew onto the stage with her long hair streaming behind her, looking tiny and over-eager. 

Bellamy balked immediately. "What? No. Octavia's--"

"--Indra's understudy. Indra's not here. Q--E--D." For each letter, Clarke tapped his shoulder with her pen.

He glared down at her. "Clarke..."

"Take it from 'Benedick, didst thou note the daughter,' Octavia," Clarke ordered blithely. "Lexa, you'll need to be up here too. Nyko, you'll want to wait in the wings until Don Pedro is called."

"You are not the goddamn director!" Bellamy growled. "Do your own fucking job!"

The ratcheting obscenities seemed to have no effect on her. Crossing her arms over her binder, she gazed up at him with narrowed eyes. "You first."

Wick paused his work and watched along in fascination as Bellamy opened his mouth, closed it, and then turned away sharply. "From 'Didst thou note,' Octavia, but just until Indra gets here. Don't get comfortable up there." Octavia glowed. "I need the house and the booth quiet. Anybody talking from here on out better be on the headset." Bellamy stalked past Clarke and down the steps, flicking at the tips of her hair as he went. "I forgot what a pain in the ass you are, Princess."

Wick had never seen Clarke grin quite like that before.

Octavia clipped on her mic as Lexa made her stately way up the stairs, and up in the booth Wick leaned back and let out a breath.

"Well, wasn't that something."

Raven snorted as she bundled the mic wires. "Yeah, Clarke is...Clarke. She's been back all of three seconds and she's already trying to run the place again. And with that absolute creep, Lexa." Her disapproving glare could have melted the booth's windows on its way down to the stage. "I'd let Murphy drop some shit on  _her_."

"Y'know, I heard Clarke was gone for awhile. Because of some asshole guy or something." Wick nodded down at where Bellamy was standing. "That him?"

"Who,  _Bellamy_?" Raven shook her head, either with amusement or disbelief, he wasn't quite sure. "No," she said, in a voice that was a little too bright and a little too sharp, "Clarke left because of Finn."

The name was unexpectedly familiar. "Finn Collins? Playwright? Sometimes actor? L'Oreal model?"

"That's the one."

Her tone was so aggressive he wondered what he'd done to make her angry. "What was wrong with him?"

But Raven was ignoring him now. Bellamy had turned and was gesturing up at her with his thumb in the air. [ _More volume,_ ] he mouthed. Wick suddenly realized he couldn't hear Octavia talking on stage at all. He hadn't really minded.

"Hold this," Raven ordered briskly, handing him the bunch of cables before lowering herself under the sound boards. "I'll bridge the amp."

"Raven?"

Once she was safely ensconced in wiring, her tone softened a little. "Don't bring this up again, okay?""

"Are you going to have to kill me after telling me this?"

 "I haven't decided yet." 

He held up his hands in a gesture of exaggerated surrender that she had no way of seeing. "Cross my heart."

"He bailed on us."

Wick peered through the glass at Octavia. "'I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife,'" he heard her recite faintly from the stage, her smiling gaze on Lincoln, who was standing in the wings and watching her with silent reverence.

"So? Didn't Lincoln and Octavia do that too?" Everyone in the business knew about Lincoln and Octavia.

"Not on opening night." The scrabbling sound of wires being jammed blindly into plugs. "Finn was a last-minute understudy for Lincoln. When he left, we were totally screwed."

There was a crackling noise under the boards and the mics onstage trebled their sound. Bellamy looked up at the booth and gave Wick an absent thumbs-up, which he accepted on Raven's behalf. 

"That's why Clarke took last season off?"

"Yep." She backed out on her hands and knees, still not meeting his gaze. "And that's the whole story."

"Yeah, I'm thinking it's not. And it doesn't explain what you have against Clarke."

She stood and brushed off her jeans. "She bailed. I think it's flighty.  _I_ stuck around and did my job. Now get that cue lined up or I'll have to do that by myself too."

"Raven. What the hell do you all have against Finn?"

"He was too good of an actor." The biting finality in her tone told him he'd pushed a little too far. She turned away.

 "Look, I'm sorry if--"

Down below, the door to the Dungeon banged open, cutting him off and bringing the speech on stage to a grinding halt. Clarke stalked into the auditorium, dragging Jasper and Monty by their ears. Wick was impressed; he'd never seen anyone actually do that before.

"Oh, this should be good." Raven's voice had regained its sardonic edge as she sat down in the chair next to him to watch.

"Hey!" Jasper yelped as the trio made their awkward way along the aisle. "I don't see the big deal, it's called the green room for a reason--"

Bellamy held up a hand irritably, and they froze in their tracks. "From 'In mine eye,' again, please," he called up to the stage.

"In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on," Octavia picked up. Bellamy stayed standing with his hand to his mouth but glanced over at Clarke with a questioning look. Releasing Jasper and Monty, she raised thumb and forefinger to her lips and made a puffing motion. Bellamy rolled his eyes and pointed to two seats behind him, next to the intern.

Wick watched in amusement as Clarke gave the boys a push and they filed dutifully into their assigned seats. "Well, she came back to this sort of shit, didn't she?" he mused. "You gotta hand her that."

Raven had busied herself adjusting the faders. "Flighty. Like I said."

"I don't think deferring medical school to come help you out counts as 'flighty,' but okay." 

Raven paused, her fingers hovering over the channels like a pianist who has gotten lost halfway through a song. "She did what?"

"Put off a paying career for this? Yeah." Wick watched her carefully as she bit her lips, an emotion like guilt stealing over her face. "It's whatever," he tossed out, saving her the trouble of saying something apologetic. "She's still nothing compared to you."

Raven took the opening with a roll of her eyes. "And why's that?"

He grinned. " _You_  light up the stage."

Her smile was completely unwilling. She shook her head as he turned back toward the stage. "Shut up, Wick."

Down in the house, Clarke was retaking her seat, her headset still loose around her neck. Bellamy pressed two fingers to his watch and then made a drinking motion with his hand. [ _Coffee?_ ] he mouthed. Clarke smiled and picked up her binder from the seat next to her. It said "I'm the Stage Manager" in beautiful red script on the front. She turned it to the backside, which read, "NOT YOUR FUCKING SECRETARY" in huge block letters. A brief flurry of signals passed between them that Wick couldn't follow, and then suddenly the two were playing a furious game of Rock, Paper, Scissors across the aisles at each other. Clarke threw Scissors, then Rock, and won both times.

"Good god," Wick chuckled as Bellamy turned back to the stage in surly-mouthed defeat and Clarke tucked her headset snugly back over her ears. "Are they fighting or fucking?"

Raven rolled her eyes. "If we didn't need both of them to make a show run, we would've let them kill each other a million years ago."

"Warning, SX 1. You sure you've got a cue set up for this?" Clarke's voice crackled onto the headset, and both Wick and Raven started. "Also, I can hear you guys."

"Thank you, warning," Wick said without moving to set up the cue. Raven watched him expectantly, but he just leaned back in his chair and continued to study her. "I thought Bellamy was in charge of this show?"

"Bellamy has the vision, but Clarke's the one with all the follow-through," Raven corrected. Wick was surprised to hear a note of irritated admiration in her voice. Her gaze cut through the window to where Clarke was standing in the aisle. Clarke raised her head, the shadow of a surprised and grateful smile starting on her lips. Raven looked away, her embarrassed gaze falling on Wick's unplugged phone. "Unlike some people I know."

"Hey now," Wick protested in mock outrage.

"Standby, SX 1," Clarke interrupted.

"I will have you know--"

"SX 1, go."

Wick moved, quickly and fluidly. The sound of stamping hoof beats filled the theater seconds before Don Pedro strode onto the stage. Wick looked up, grinning. He was starting to like the way Raven suppressed a smile and shook her head when she realized she was wrong. "I have great follow-through."

**************************

The next two weeks were some of the strangest of Wick's professional life. It was almost as though rehearsals happened incidentally between periods of sniping and stony indifference. Bellamy continued to ride Lexa pretty hard, although she was, in all fairness, a terrible actress. At least if it was a shitshow it was going to be a slick shitshow, though--Raven was an excellent tech partner, and the lights and sound were flawless.

For the most part, the Arkers kept to themselves and the Grounders stayed in the back. The intern, Maya, tried to placate both groups with various pastries, but so far Jasper was her only taker. The only real cross-contamination Wick saw was between Clarke and Lexa. Clarke sat with Bellamy during rehearsal, but she left every evening with Lexa, their heads close together, shifting through piles of notes, speaking quietly. Bellamy and Gustus would watch them go with the same sour expressions on their faces.

The day it all changed, Raven came into the booth looking agitated, a pencil behind her ear and another between her teeth being chewed into matchsticks.

"Stay out of Clarke and Bellamy's way today," she warned, slamming her notes binder down on the chair. "They're fighting like cats and dogs who are also huge assholes."

"What happened?"

"Oh, I told Lexa to break a leg since she has to run the love speech today and she's the worst at it." She rolled her eyes. "Then Bellamy told me I was going to jinx the show because this isn't a performance, and Clarke gave me a lecture on how 'break a leg' means to break through the curtains in the wings and only refers to encores and yada yada yada."

Wick leaned forward over the sound controls to search the house. Clarke was in her usual seat, but Bellamy had taken up residence in the first row, his back very clearly to her. The cast was picking up on it; everyone was quiet, except Jasper, who was whispering to Maya in the middle of the audience. When Raven spoke again, she sounded amused.

"I heard Lexa stayed at Clarke's house last night. They were up all night strategizing about Mount Weather or...whatever," she smirked. "Clarke missed a meeting with Bellamy this morning and now--"

"If Indra is not on this stage in the next fifteen seconds, I'm going to let Octavia play Claudio, which she's basically already doing since Indra is never here!" Bellamy shouted to the room at large.

"Really, Bell?" Octavia squeed.

"No. Sit down. Where the desiccated shit is Indra?"

"I think she went to get food," one of the Grounders called carelessly. "If she doesn't keep her blood sugar up, she might faint and fall off the stage." There was sniggering among the group.

"Octavia. Gustus. Fox. Lexa. Nyko. Harper," he bit out. "Scene Four. From 'Good morrow.' Move it."

Actors scrambled. In her seat behind him, Clarke was curiously quiet.

They'd run the scene all the way through twice by the time Indra showed up, strolling through the doors with what looked, from above, like a flight of hot dogs and a six-pack of beer.

"Greetingsh," she managed over a mouthful of hot dog, seemingly impervious to the atmosphere of the room. Wick immediately looked to Bellamy, who was standing at the base of the stage, in the middle of giving notes to Lexa and Octavia. At the sound of Indra's voice, his palms flattened themselves on the edge and his shoulders tightened up. 

Clarke looked up from her seat like a startled deer, her gaze volleying from Indra's aggressive grin to Bellamy's turned back. 

"Shit," Raven muttered. "Let's see how many people get kicked out today."

"No," Clarke whispered into the headset. "Raven, I mean it, if anything looks like it's going to happen, you cut the lights."

"I don't think a canary cage is going to do it, Clarke," Raven quipped, but she looked worried, her eyes not leaving Indra's face as the older woman shoveled in another bite.

"Indra," Bellamy said coldly, without turning around. "In the theater, we have a saying. 'Early is on time, on time is late, and late is  _fucking unacceptable._ '"

"Ai ge biyo nou dina kamp raun disha luson," Indra replied carelessly with a bulging mouth, spraying bits of soggy bun down the aisle as she walked.

"The fuck did you just say to me?"

Clarke was halfway out of her chair, looking ready to throw herself onto this landmine of a situation, but Octavia knelt down on the stage and placed a hand on her brother's curly head. Wick was starting to think she was either the bravest or the dumbest person in the group.

"She said, 'I'm told there's no food around this place,'" she provided helpfully. The theater stared at her in silent astonishment. She looked around with a blinking sort of defiance. "Well, she did."

Indra was the first to laugh, a big, booming laugh of proud admiration. Then Clarke began to chuckle, and Lexa--the Keanu Reeves of the company--managed a thin smile, and then even Bellamy's anger couldn't seem to maintain its grip on his shoulders as the cast dissolved into mirth. Only two people didn't seem amused--Gustus, who stalked disgustedly into the wings, and Raven, who watched him go with deep mistrust.

"I like you, kid," Indra said boldly to Octavia, and the mutters from the Grounders sounded almost approving. "You're a good understudy."

On the ground floor, Clarke was taking advantage of the company's weakness. "All right, that's enough of Claudio and company," she called, clapping for attention. "Let's remember that we're in a comedy for a second! Jasper, get up there and do the prison speech. Scene two." 

Wick had known Jasper for all of two weeks and even he was surprised when the kid didn't jump to immediately. In fact, he didn't even seem to realize that Clarke was talking. He was sitting with his head tilted toward Maya, and as the rest of the cast quieted, it was clear they were whispering obliviously.

"Monty was the only one who believed I could hit it from that distance, but I'd been drinking Big Gulps all day, so I whipped it out and nailed it from like--"

"Jasper, NOW."

The two looked up, the girl coloring warmly as they realized all eyes were on them. "What's that, chief?" Jasper hummed.

"I'm going to say, 'Away, you are an ass, you are an ass,' and you can decide if that's a line or not," Clarke said with tremendous disdain.

"Maya and I are having a conversation, Clarke, jeez," he muttered, reluctantly dragging himself from the seat and plodding toward the stage.

"About a literal pissing match," Bellamy shook his head.

"'An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable,'" Clarke recited with an almost-smile, glancing sideways at Bellamy. "Shaw's  _Man and_ \--'"

"I know who George Bernard Shaw is," he grunted irritably, settling into his seat in front of her. "Okay, Jasper, from 'you are an ass.'"

Clarke stood stock still for a moment, a wounded look passing briefly over her face. Bellamy didn't look back. Biting her lip, she moved up toward the stage to motion Lexa. 

"Go grab me the wine bottle, would you?" she asked. "It's prop table, stage right."

Lexa started to move, but Gustus stopped her. "No need. I got it, Hedda."

Jasper was making his shambling his way up the aisle, one hand pressed dramatically to his chest. "'Dost thou suspect...'" He paused, looking back over his shoulder. "Line!"

Maya blushed and smiled, flipping through the script with fumbling fingers. "Uh, 'my place.'"

He nodded amiably, shoving his hands in his pockets and spinning around to shuffle backward so as to face her. "Right, right. 'Dost thou not suspect my place. Dost thou not suspect...'" Another impish pause. "Line?"

"'My years,'" she prompted, more readily this time.

"'O that he were here to write me...'" He made a show of puzzling over the next few words, then shook his head. In the back, one of the Grounders chuckled. "It's 'write me' something or other. Line!"

"'Down an ass!'" she provided reluctantly.

"I'll say!" Indra called to general laughter.

Maya giggled. "Jasper, cut it out."

"I like it better when you say it. You should always say ass." He lifted himself up onto the stage with some extra effort from his scrawny arms. Gustus shook his head and sneered as he walked past across the stage.

"Sophomoric child. You needn't--"

His heavy boot hit the corner of the trapdoor and it caved in like wet cardboard, the plate plunging below the stage. Gustus toppled forward and down at the same time, and a slick snapping sound followed the impact of his shin against the edge.

The big man landed hard on the other side of the trapdoor, knee clutched in his meaty fist, his mouth a silent  _O_  of anguish. 

Jasper scrambled to his feet, the smile sliding off his face like something sick and viscous. The house had gone breathless. In the vacuum of surprise, Gustus sucked in a breath and began to howl. One by one, heads began to turn up toward Wick and the booth. He looked over at Raven, who had gone gray. Her fingers were frozen over the control board, her breathing very slow.

"I didn't do that," she said shakily, looking to him with those large, endless eyes of hers. "You saw me. I wasn't anywhere near those controls. You can tell them."

Wick felt his stomach fold over itself. "Raven, I was looking at the stage."

"But if you tell them--"

"I can't do that."

He had never seen such wounded betrayal on someone's face before. It looked like it had taken up residence there a long time ago and was only now returning to the forefront. Her mouth closed and tightened around the bitter mouthful of it.

Lexa had mounted the stage and was kneeling over Gustus's prone body. Her sharp eyes were moving swiftly over his broken leg, the trap door, the deep pit down beneath the stage. She raised her chin to the booth and the vitriol in her eyes sent Wick rolling back in his chair.

"Raven Reyes," she called stonily over Gustus's moans, "You're fired. You have ten seconds to leave this building."


	4. Unrehearsed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If somebody doesn't put their mouth onto someone else's mouth in the next five seconds, I am going to lose it.
> 
> Let's get smooching, people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Prove that ever I lose more blood  
> with love than I will get again with drinking, pick  
> out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen and hang me  
> up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of  
> blind Cupid."  
> \- Benedick, Act I, Scene i

Bellamy stared at the stage, at Gustus's prone and writhing form, and the only thought he could dredge up was,  _Fuck me, that trapdoor better not be broken._

Then Lexa moved her dispassionate gaze from the wings down to where Clarke was standing next to him and locked in. "Clarke. She's your responsibility." And Bellamy looked to the booth where Raven was standing like a bird ready to take flight, her eyes full of murder and ringed with fear.

"Piss off, that wasn't me!" she shouted through the window.

Clarke turned pleading eyes upward. "Lexa, please. Let's figure this out."

The other woman was intractable. "She can lower the hydraulic lift from the booth. And I have heard, on occasion, Bellamy tell her to drop me through the trapdoor."

Bellamy's heart was a glass paperweight. She wouldn't take this theater away from him. 

Lexa's tone was icy now. "If Gustus hadn't walked across the stage in my place, that would have been me. She could have killed me." 

"I didn't do it!" Raven shouted, banging her fist against the window.

"Bring her down here and throw her out of the theater," Lexa commanded coldly to Indra, who stood immediately and headed for the booth. When had Lexa taken over this theater? When had he let her?

"Lexa, we  _need_  her." Clarke's voice was imploring, but she didn't move to stop the Grounders as they surrounded the booth, as Indra shouldered in the door, as they muscled Wick aside.

"Clarke," Bellamy growled, turning on her. He hadn't been able to look her directly in the eye in days. Watching her when she talked to Lexa was like defining the edges of something slipping through his fingers. This was the moment of teetering allegiance. "Clarke,  _do_  something."

She looked at him with drowning eyes. "I said," she whispered. "I said I'd kick out anyone who did something like this."

He grabbed her by the elbow and yanked her a step toward him, as though that could do anything at all. "No. Not Raven."

She shook him free. He could feel her shifting away from him, in her stance, in her folded arms, in her whole position. "What, so only if it was one of them? How is that fair?"

He was saved the trouble of a retort as three Grounders began dragging Raven out of the booth. She wasn't going without a fight, but they dwarfed her in size, and the girl only had one good leg. The helpless urge to pummel someone was building in him and he wasn't sure whom he wanted to turn it on.

"I didn't do this, Clarke!" Raven shouted in the hush. Actors looked uneasily at each other and then toward the stage, to the three people who had been fighting for control for months.

"I'm sorry," Clarke said in a small voice that carried nonetheless, that made Raven go still in the arms of her captors. "I'll figure this out. I will." But it was pure capitulation, and everyone heard it that way.

"Tell them, Wick!" Raven called, letting them pull her toward the double doors, her heels dragging along the red carpet. "Tell them I didn't do it!"

Wick stood in the doorway to the booth, his brow furrowed, his arms hanging helplessly at his sides. "I wasn't watching you, Raven," he said, shaking his head. He turned to look toward the stage. "I was watching Gustus." He took a step, and then another, up the aisle, his expression narrowed. Indra signaled for the others to stop and there was a pause like a tableau as Wick made is way onto the stage, ignoring Gustus's crabbed and rocking form. He crouched by the open trapdoor, examining it.

"The hydraulics were keeping the trapdoor closed. If Raven lowered the platform, the hinges would have opened and Gustus would have seen it. But someone could have lowered the platform from underneath and kept the doors closed by wedging something into the hinges. Something breakable." Without any ceremony whatsoever, he dropped through the pit and climbed out a moment later, holding two pieces of a thick wooden ruler aloft.

Something ugly with twisted fingers reached into Bellamy's chest and shattered his paperweight heart.

"Gustus," Clarke breathed, her hands clenching into fists. "He did it himself. When he left after Indra got back."

"Impossible," Lexa shook her head. "Gustus would never do anything to hurt me."

"He wasn't," Bellamy bit out. "He did it to hurt the show and to kill this theater." He was already moving, already past Clarke's scrabbling hand against his shirt sleeve. She alone knew what he was doing. It took the others a moment to realize it, to yell their protestations before he mounted the stage, dug his boot heel into Gustus's broken leg, and leaned his weight into it.

The man  _screamed_. The acoustics in the theater were exquisite.

Bellamy didn't see the boulder of a fist arcing toward the side of his head. If Gustus hadn't been so far below him, or in such furious pain, the weight of it might have bashed Bellamy's skull in. As it was, it clipped him hard over the ear, a weighty ring on the larger man's pinky tearing through his skin.

He fell backward into Clarke, who was there in time to catch him, at least. The world tilted sideways as his brain trembled against his skull. He let her keep him upright, his back cushioned against her chest, her arms locked around his ribs. He could feel her heart knocking against his spine as he sagged against her.

People were shouting in earnest now, at each other, across the stage, their voices a confused jumble. He heard Lexa, though, as clear as a bell. "Take him out of here and dump him in the street. He can crawl to the hospital." It took him a long moment to realize she was talking about Gustus.

He turned his head into Clarke's shoulder, looking for Raven. She'd been released and was headed up the aisle toward the stage as Wick jumped to the floor. Her expression held none of the rage he expected. There was a smile unfurling itself along her mouth.

"You could have just lied to them," he heard her mutter as Wick came down to meet her.

" _I_ am a terrible actor," he replied, but solemnly, as though it were a meaningful thing to say. Raven's face went pale, her lips parted.

"Bellamy," Lexa said sharply, and Bellamy pushed himself into balance again, gaining his feet as Clarke hastily let him go. He focused on Lexa, calm and still despite the whirlwind of activity around her. "You harmed a member of this cast."

"He was trying to sabotage this entire production."

"And he's been ejected swiftly and thoroughly, as I promised any offender would be," Lexa replied smoothly. She eyed him steadily, then moved her gaze up to skewer Clarke. "We honor our word here. Violations do not go unpunished."

He didn't expect Clarke to speak up. Not after that performance with Raven. But she did, in a completely rippleless voice. "Bellamy, go to your office, please, and get that bleeding to stop. I'd like to speak with Lexa. Alone."

The allegiance he thought he'd lost was clear in her blue eyes. Surprising them both, he went without a word.

**************

The conversation that followed was swift and decisive. It started with, "I don't believe in exceptions," and ended with, "I didn't say you can't make him leave. I said that I'll leave too. It's your choice."

 **************

Ten minutes later, Clarke knocked on Bellamy's office door and entered without waiting for his permission. She found him sitting on the edge of his desk, knees apart, holding a blood-stained towel to his head in one hand and a beer in the other.

"Three pieces of furniture in this room and you're sitting on the only one not meant for it," she quipped, trying to keep it light.

He barely glanced at her, his head in his hand. "You find the med kit?"

She looked down at the white box in her hand. "Sort of. Jasper replaced all the Band-Aids with fruit roll-ups, but there are still bandages and gauze, so that's something."

He said nothing and she hesitated awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of what to say. The red bloom of blood had spread its tendrils down the white cloth, the combination shocking against his dark skin. His eyes on hers were wary, aggressive. "So do I still work here or what?"

It surprised her enough to take a step into the room. "Of course you do!"

He looked amused by her vehemence. "It was your rule. And Lexa was out for blood."

"I'm not going to kick you out of your own theater, Bellamy!"

"You were going to do it to Raven."

That stopped her. "Yes," she admitted. "But that was different."

"How?"

"She isn't you." His mouth fell open slightly and she felt herself redden. "I mean, she's not in charge. We can't lose you any more than we can lose Lexa. It's not--"

He cut her rambling off with a wave of his bottle. "Where's the rest of the cast?"

She seized the change of subject gratefully. "I told them to knock off, so they went to the bar. No use sticking around when their director has a concussion."

"I don't have a concussion," he repeated emphatically. "And what the hell bar would let Maya in? She's like fourteen."

"She is not." Feeling some of the tension dissipate, Clarke stepped the rest of the way into the room, sliding the chair away from the desk. 

"Jasper's into her," he warned darkly. "That's going to end badly."

Clarke sighed and pulled the beer from his raised hand, setting it down next to his hip. "Only if you get uptight about people following your stupid rule. Not every relationship means the collapse of this theater."

"It only has to happen twice," he muttered darkly.

"You are so dramatic." She set the kit next to him on the desk. "Let me see that gash."

Wincing, he pulled the towel away from his temple. The dark curls over his ear were slick with blood. "It's not that bad."

Grateful for a reason not to look at him directly, she snapped open the kit, searching for disinfectant. "Did you ever think it was your rule that was the problem? If Raven and I didn't have to hide our relationships with Finn from you, it might have gone differently." 

Stony silence greeted that proposition. She looked up from her search to see him giving her a patiently incredulous look. "What?" she demanded.

"No," he growled. The beer bottle was back in his hand. He shook his head and took a drink. "No. You are not blaming me for Finn being a dick." 

"I'm  _not_. I'm just saying." She found the small tube and held it up. 

"Saying what?" 

"That your rule is stupid. Now hold still." There was nowhere to stand but between his open legs. His large, dark eyes were on her face, but she busied herself at his temple, tilting his chin to the side with two fingers without meeting his gaze.

"Well, you got the bleeding to stop, anyway," she noted. "Good grief, you have a lot of hair." It was thick and sticky between her fingers, but the gash beneath it was hardly more than a scratch. With his face turned away from her, she only caught the edge of his smile. "You're right, though. It's not bad. Actually, I can close the wound using your hair if you want."

His brow furrowed. "What, like a braid?"

She tried not to picture Bellamy with a lone braid decorating his temple. "More like a little stitch over the cut. It'll keep it from opening back up." Without further approval, she began weaving his hair tight over the scrape. He flinched.

"You do know what you're doing, right?"

She feigned indignation. "Excuse me, I completed pre-med."

"And spent every summer here because you hated it so much, which is why you didn't get into medical school." His head tilted back as he took another swig of beer. The motion pulled her further in, his hard thighs pressing against her legs, her forearms brushing against his shoulder.

She tugged his head back into place, keeping her voice neutral. "I did, actually."

He turned toward her, startled, his curls falling away from under her hands. "What?"

"Turn your head back, please, I have to find my place again."

"Clarke."

"Now!"

With an exasperated sigh, he faced to the side once more. She ran her fingers over his scalp, trying to ignore the thick mass of his curls in her hand, until she found the little knot.

"I applied to medical school this year," she said finally as she worked. "I got in."

She had stopped flinching at effusive congratulations. She had learned to quiet the panic she felt in the wake of others' glowing expectations, of their appraising admiration. But Bellamy turned back to look at her, searchingly, his hand coming up to close around her wrist. 

"Why?" he asked.

Her fingers were still caught in his hair, her palm resting against his scruffy cheek. She couldn't think back to that awful night, the door closing behind Finn, the empty theater, the rain on the roof. She couldn't voice it.

"You know why," she said quietly, gently pushing his head back into place. He dropped his hold on her wrist and the skin there grew cold. She finished the stitch and ran her finger over the bump. He didn't move away. 

"But you're here now," he said eventually, just barely making it a question.

"Of course I am." 

"How? I mean, with med school?"

"I got a deferral. I'll start up in the fall." With a brisk flourish, she combed his wild curls back into place over his ear. "You're all done." She took the soiled towel and wiped her hands carefully on a clean corner. She could feel him watching her. "I wanted to be here," she added finally. "I wanted to make sure the show did okay."

She glanced up and the way he was looking at her vibrated at the same frequency as all of her misgivings about her life. "And when the show's over?" he asked quietly.

The jarring ring of her cellphone saved her. Dropping the towel onto the chair, she turned away from his inquisitive gaze. Raven's name was on the caller ID. She couldn't imagine trying to choose between two worse conversations.

She answered on the fourth ring. "Raven, listen--"

The raucous sound of bar life oversaturated the tinny little speakers and she held the phone away from her face. "Clarke?"

"Yeah, Raven, listen--"

"Clarke, could you come down to the Bunker?"

She glanced over her shoulder at Bellamy. "Uh, now?"

"No, tomorrow morning."

"Okay, okay. I'll be there in fifteen."

Reshelving the phone in her jacket pocket, she turned back with a weary smile. "I gotta go get yelled at."

Bellamy eased himself off the edge of the desk, reaching for the back of the chair to steady himself. "I'll come with you."

"Yeah right." She caught his arm as he took a drunken step forward and steered him, stumbling, to the couch. "You're not going anywhere--you've been drinking and losing blood for the last fifteen minutes."

"Get me a tattoo and it's the Grounder trifecta."

"Just shut up and lie down." He stretched out on the sofa without further protest and it pulled a strangely protective feeling from her. She felt a bizarre urge to curl up next to him and go to sleep. "I'll pour one out for you."

Having pulled the blanket down over him and snapped off the lights, she lingered in the doorway, feeling conflicted. He lay on his back, his arm thrown over his eyes.

"Bellamy?" He raised his elbow to look at her. She started several different sentences in her head, but none of them made it past her lips.

"You should stay," he murmured softly, and she had no idea how he meant it. She closed the door and left.

 

Clarke hadn't set foot inside The Bunker since Finn. It was a bar most people from the Ark avoided back then, unless they were willing to get in a fight with the Grounders who patronized it. Bellamy and Murphy had both been in brawls there at various times, but the Grounders never bothered Finn. He had a way of keeping the peace, of radiating nonviolence through sheer force of will. They used to go to the back booths and talk...

She felt her nostalgia drain away as she walked up to the blacked-out glass door. The only times he'd ever kissed her in public were here. At the time she'd thought maybe he was shy around his friends, that he needed the dark, intimate corners to meet her courage or that he was ducking Bellamy's stupid no-romance policy. Now the memories soured her stomach. She stepped inside.

Sticky floors and wailing nineties metal greeted her like a familiar nightmare. The seedy decor hadn't changed much, but the patronage certainly had. It was like the establishment had been split down the middle. The Grounders were all banded together around the pool tables on one side, trading shots and smoking cigarettes in clear violation of state policy. The Arkers had two tables on the other side. Monty, Miller, Harper, and Monroe had set up a poker game at one, and Jasper and Maya sat alone at the other. No sign of Raven on either side. 

There was a tangible tension around the room, but Clarke felt a moment of pleasant surprise all the same. Sure, they weren't talking or becoming friends, but the two groups were occupying the same space and everyone still had all their teeth in their heads. After the events of the day it felt like progress. 

Jasper and Maya's table was closest to the door, and Clarke hesitated in the foyer as she thought she caught her name. Jasper was facing away from her, draped over the back of his seat and talking to the poker table. She eased closer.

"--never comes here anymore, and neither does Bellamy," he was saying. "So I'm fine."

"Maybe they're off drinking on their own," Miller suggested, staring at his cards. "If you know what I mean."

"Ew, dude!" Jasper sputtered. "There are things seriously wrong with you." 

"Yeah, don't be gross, Miller," Monroe frowned, laying down her cards. "Full house." 

Maya spotted Clarke as she approached and nudged Jasper in the side. "Jasper," she whispered. He didn't turn around. 

"Plus, they're--they're Mom and Dad! Parents don't have  _sex!_ "

Clarke leaned against his table and smiled politely. "Hi, Maya," she said clearly. Jasper's shoulders tensed. "Ap _parent_ ly I'm a little late--anybody seen Raven?"

Jasper turned around smoothly, a wide smile pasted on his terrified face. "Clarke! Great! Here, uh, you are. So. Welcome. Have a drink!" 

Slopping some of the contents over the rim, he proffered his tumbler across the table like a hasty peace offering.

Clarke took the glass and sniffed it. Rail whiskey, watery with melted ice. "Are you trying to make this worse?" she asked incredulously. "Jasper, you're twenty years old. What are you doing drinking in a bar?"

"Claaaarke!" Jasper shot to his feet, waving his arms dramatically in front of her as though trying to make her disappear. He darted a look over his shoulder at the bartender, who either didn't notice or didn't care. "Please! Not in front of my lady friend!" He rolled his eyes significantly at Maya.

"And she's eighteen!"

Maya gave her a shy smile and raised her glass. "Ginger ale," she promised. Jasper pressed his palms together and brought them pleadingly up to his mouth.

"Please, Clarke?"

Clarke looked back and forth between both of them for a long, undecided moment. Then she raised the tumbler to her lips and knocked back the whiskey pour in one go. A scattered cheer went up from the poker table. Suppressing a smile as the alcohol burned in her throat, she handed back the empty glass.

"That's what you get for ordering Canadian Club."

Weaving past a stunned-looking Jasper, Clarke made her way up to the bartender and ordered a Jameson, neat. Leaning with her back to the bar, she watched the Arkers relax back into their game. She couldn't believe they'd thought she was going to bust them. She couldn't believe it had been her first instinct to do so.

But mostly she couldn't believe she felt old and out of place at twenty-three.

Bellamy would have joined them. It didn't bother him, being older and marginally more responsible than his cast. That had never stopped him from doing whatever the hell he wanted. Her wandering gaze landed on Lexa, who was lining up her shot at one of the emptier pool tables, playing against herself. Lexa would say that feeling out of place was just the cost of doing business. Being in charge meant being apart from everybody else.

The Jameson arrived at her elbow, pungent and room temperature, and it drew a heady feeling out of a musty corner in her mind. She hadn't had Jameson in forever... 

Clarke took a sip and glanced around the room with fresh eyes. She saw now that Jasper and Maya weren't the only ones there to sit alone in public. Past the soupy haze of stale smoke, under the neon displays, two booths were buried in the back. The ones where she used to sit with Finn. Lincoln and Octavia occupied one, their foreheads pressed together in that weird way that made people wonder if they were talking or getting ready to make out.

The couple in the other booth had already decided on the latter and were wasting no time about it. Clarke started to avert her eyes from the relentless tongue-fencing and then stopped, dragging her gaze back in astonishment. 

It was Raven and Wick.

She whirled around, sliding onto a bar stool and hoping to stay out of it. No such luck. Maybe it was that her gaze had lingered too long, or that she had choked too loudly on her whiskey as she turned away, but Raven surfaced at her elbow a moment later, her hair a little mussed and her expression featuring a healthier dose of belligerence than usual.

"Coors," she nodded at the bartender. "Forget the glass." Her hooded gaze flickered briefly in Clarke's direction. "Hey." She rested her forearms on the bar and stared straight ahead at the bottles on the wall. She actually looked a little embarrassed. "So, sorry about that. Weird day."

"No," Clarke said quickly. "I think it's great."

"I meant to meet you outside, but Wick and I got talking and..." She shook her head, inhaled long, exhaled long. "Whatever. I just wanted to say, like, don't feel bad or whatever about today." Clarke's mouth unhinged itself in surprised, but Raven seemed to be making a point of not looking at her. "I know you're doing the best you can and--" her next words seemed to roll inside her mouth like sour marbles for a moment "--I think you're doing a good job."

It was so far from what she'd expected that Clarke just stared, a little overcome. "Thanks," she said finally.

Raven's beer came and she took a swig before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "So yeah, that's what I came to say."

She started to straighten up, and Clarke found herself wanting to extend the moment. "I'm happy for you two," she blurted out with a hesitant smile. "Wick's a good guy."

Raven finally looked at her with her usual sardonic grin. "Didn't expect to see us together, huh?" 

"No! That's not what I...I just didn't expect it to be so...public."

"Yeah, well, I'm done sneaking around," Raven shrugged, rolling the brown bottle between her palms. Clarke started at her tone--it was inviting rather than angry. As though she wanted to share with Clarke what they both already knew--that it was better now to have relationships that only existed in the open, where you could make sure they meant something. 

"Good for you." For a moment the two women exchanged a smile. Clarke turned away first to take a sip of her whiskey. "Just don't let Bellamy catch you with another crew member. He'd flip."

"Well, that would make him a goddamn hypocrite, now wouldn't it?" Raven smirked.

Something about the way she was grinning knowingly at her made Clarke blush. "Oh--no," she stammered. "Bellamy and I aren't--"

"Chill out, Clarke," Raven cut her off with a wave. "I wasn't talking about  _you_."

"What?" It took her a second, and then realization snapped into place. A flush raced through her, leaving her face numb. " _Oh._ You and Bellamy--Right. Sorry, of course."

Raven's amusement vanished. "Wait. Did he not tell you--?"

"No, it's fine! I mean, he didn't, but that's fine. It's fine. It's not my business or anything. It's fine."

"Because it was just once." Raven moved her hand as though to touch Clarke's elbow, and then stopped. "It wasn't a big deal."

Clarke shrugged, feeling like her smile was too cheery, too tight. "Like I said. Not my business." She drained her glass, trying to ignore Raven's growing look of concern. "I'm really happy for you and Wick," she said again, perhaps a touch too effusively.

"Clarke," Raven said seriously, pulling the glass from her hand so she had nothing left to stare at. "Seriously, it didn't mean anything. And it was like a million years ago."

Clarke couldn't meet her gaze straight on. "All right, already." She managed an awkward smile. "Can I have my drink back, please?"

Raven shrugged with her eyebrows and slid the glass back to her across the bar. "Sure, okay." She lifted her beer. "Well, I should get back. Thirsty work or whatever."

"Yeah." Another smile that felt too stiff for her face and she turned away, keeping her back to the booth and both Raven and Wick. With the tips of her fingers, she nudged her empty glass toward the bartender.

"Another," she ordered quietly. 

So Raven had been with Bellamy. So what? Neither of them was opposed to casual flings. What did Clarke care? And why did she suddenly feel as though she had recited all of Lucky's monologue from  _Waiting for Godot_  in one breath?

Raven and Bellamy...maybe that was why he had flown to defend her so quickly from Gustus. Why he had risked everything, including the theater, to punish Gustus for lying. She believed Raven that it was over, but maybe it wasn't over for Bellamy.

A new glass was in her hand, and she brought it to her lips without dwelling too hard on the fact that it was her third in less than ten minutes. The sting of whiskey in her throat felt like something to embrace. She propped her elbows on the bar, losing the thread of her thoughts in a warm cloud of alcohol.

She remembered Miller's offhand jab about her and Bellamy drinking alone, and a squirming sensation started in the pit of her stomach. The look on his face back in his office, the feeling of his hand around her wrist. She'd thought maybe it was the rule that was stopping him, that idiotic rule of his, but it wasn't. Not if what Raven was saying was true...

 _I'm so stupid,_  she thought, shaking her head.  _And I never learn my lesson._ A muzzy, mottled memory was rising in her like churned-up silt. It was a dim memory, one that she had never let herself think too long or too hard about, but now it wouldn't leave her alone. 

She had just closed the doors on  _The Dropship_ _._ Finn had admitted his duplicity and disappeared into the rain, his face etched with heartbreaking self-loathing. Raven's booth was dark. The confused and milling crowds had been sent home and the cast had scattered. It was all over. 

Soaking in the loneliness like it was thunderous applause, Clarke had sat under the blazing lights on the empty stage with a bottle of Jameson and thought about how good it would be to run--away from her friends, away from herself, away from her failure. High above her, she could hear rain pattering along the rooftop. 

She'd had several pulls from the mouth of the bottle when a strong, warm hand tugged it from her grip, and she realized Bellamy had joined her on the stage. He sat next to her, his knee nearly touching hers.

By that point, the alcohol was already tingling pleasantly in the cradle of her stomach, and she found herself waiting patiently for his lecture, for one of his pedantic speeches. Instead, he took a swig of whiskey and handed it back.

"Let me guess," he sighed. "You're taking next season off."

The Mount Weather threat was barely on their radar back then, but it seemed as good an excuse as any. "I need to talk to President Wallace and see how serious this offer is. Negotiations might take awhile. I'll be in touch," she added lamely.

Bellamy had never been one to argue with someone's choice once they made up their mind. "Okay."

The rows of seats stretched out, empty and forlorn in front of them, and Clarke wished he would try to talk her out of it, just a little. Instead, they passed the bottle back and forth in companionable silence until the whiskey started to slosh at the bottom and the lights on the stage became soft and buttery.  

"We could have saved this production," Bellamy finally observed, not angry, just saying.

"No," said Clarke, frowning fuzzily. "We had no leads left. Lincoln, Octavia, Finn..." She tried to tick the names off on her fingers and missed, the momentum pitching her forward. She would have tumbled off the stage if Bellamy hadn't flattened his hand across her collarbone. "They all left. And Mel got beat up by Grounders in the alley last week. So she couldn't've gone on." She dropped her hands. "That's all our understudies."

"Yeah, I did the math." Bellamy was watching her with barely concealed amusement. He released her tentatively, watching to see if she stayed upright. "I meant that  _we_  could have done it."

"Us? You and me?"

He shrugged and took a pull. "Sure. You've acted before, haven't you?"

There was the right combination of alcohol and catastrophic failure in her system to make her say the words. She looked down, fidgeting in her lap. "My dad was an actor. He died a few years back."

"No shit?" Bellamy didn't look away, but his expression grew serious. "My mom too."

"Haven't actually been on the stage since he died," she added, feeling the slippery words just coming now without much thought. She gazed around the room. "Sometimes I think I'd like to again. Finn said I should. Said it'd be a nice way to honor my dad."

Bellamy paused with the bottle halfway to his lips. "Finn is an asshole," he said decisively before tipping back for another pull. It was somehow exactly what she needed to hear. Without thinking about it too hard, Clarke let herself tip sideways and slip under his raised elbow, leaning her head against his chest. 

He froze for an instant. Then, to her surprise, his arm lowered slowly and draped itself around her shoulders. In all the years she had known him, they had never touched in a way that wasn't either coolly professional or heatedly aggressive. He was so warm and so solid. If she had known that all it took to feel this safe and content was drinking, she would have started a long time ago. Very carefully, he transferred the bottle to the other hand and set it down, as though a loud noise might startle her away.

For a moment she enjoyed the way his chest lifted her head rhythmically up and down, his breath soft in her hair. It had never occurred to her to try something like this before, and it had been so easy. What was stopping her from raising her head up to his warm neck and breathing him in? Nothing! Suddenly, his chin was right there in front of her. His breath was everything in her world, and it was growing more and more uneven as she began to nuzzle his jaw.

Alcohol was so wonderful. And all he'd have to do was tilt his head a little, lower his chin, and their mouths would meet. Almost like an accident.

Except he didn't tilt. He didn't lower anything. He stayed facing stoically forward, and the only indication that he noticed her at all was the way his breathing grew more ragged when she dragged her lips along his jaw. She let her tongue slide free just a little as she moved her way up his neck, and his arm tightened around her shoulder, holding her to him. When she reached his earlobe and drew it into her mouth, he finally snapped, lurching away from her and then just as quickly grabbing her shoulders to keep her from falling forward.

"You've had enough," he said firmly, and a wave of disappointment swept through her. Embarrassment was still safely anchored off shore in a sea of shame-proof inebriation. "I'm cutting you off."

She made a half-hearted swipe for the bottle across his lap, but his grip tightened like a vise on her shoulders. "Why?" she demanded, knowing in that moment that he wanted her, and pleased somehow that he was resisting it. 

His expression was dead sober, his voice a husky growl. "Because tomorrow you're going to wake up and remember what you actually want."

"I want the whiskey."

"No, you don't," he sighed. The room very slowly started to tilt. She let all of her weight fall forward into his hands, feeling her eyelids grow heavy. "Dammit, Clarke," he sighed, his fingers clenching into her biceps so hard it almost hurt. "Goddammit."

And that was the end of it. The next morning she'd come to on the couch in his office with gritty teeth and a wrecking ball swinging in her skull. He'd covered her with a blanket. Her shoes were still on. She found her things and left. She hadn't seen Bellamy again in person for almost a year.

At the time, still reeling from Finn, she had felt only muddled embarrassment at his rejection, along with vague gratitude that he never brought it up again. But now, knowing what she knew about him and Raven, she felt something entirely new, something close to bitter shame.

The memory faded away and Clarke held the last swallow of whiskey in her mouth, letting it burn under her tongue.  _So stupid,_  she thought again.  _So, so stupid._

"Clarke."

Her head jerked up. "Hm?"

Lexa had materialized next to her at the bar. "May I join you?" She stood perfectly still, waiting with that serene patience that made her such a calming presence.

Clarke smiled uncertainly. "Um, sure."

The bar stool next to her scraped loudly as Lexa sat down beside her. She had let out her braids, and her hair fell in loose chestnut waves down her back. 

"Two tequila shots," Lexa informed the bartender.

Clarke made a noise of protest. "I'm drinking Jameson."

"You were. Now you're taking tequila shots."

It suddenly didn't seem like the worst idea. Clarke planted her chin on her fist, which wobbled. "Can I have a lime at least?"

Lexa faced her squarely. "Only if you take it in the eye. It is our way."

Clarke couldn't tell if she was joking or not. The sort of breathless quiet of a rapt audience was stealing over the tables behind them. Jasper was the first to break it.

"Five bucks on Clarke."

"You're on, little man," Indra growled in a voice that held a feral grin. "And if you come here and sink the eight ball in the side pocket, I'll double it."

Suddenly, the scuffling of various transactions rose behind them. Neither Clarke nor Lexa looked back; they watched each other carefully on opposite shores of a smile. Clarke was cogent enough to realize that they were on the edge of something big but drunk enough to be galvanized by it instead of worried. _Let them see that we can get along_ , she thought.  _Let them all see and take note._

When the drinks came, Lexa knocked hers back without flinching and chased it with nothing more than a bracing grimace. Clarke, never one for shots, still couldn't find it in herself to refuse the gift. She raised the trembling glass to her lips and sipped it instead.

Groans went up around the room from her completely unsubtle audience, but Lexa was watching her with what looked suspiciously like amusement. Now the sounds were the definitive slaps of money changing hands.

"I want you," Lexa said briskly, and Clarke's head shot up, "to talk to Bellamy for me."

Coughing a little at the tequila fire now streaking down the wrong tube, Clarke thumped her chest and set down her glass. "What?"

"When we met, you told me that the director had a vision," Lexa said carefully. Clarke nodded. "And you insisted that we perform according to that vision."

Her head was starting to swim. She was losing the layers of careful tact that she used to keep order in the ranks. "More or less."

"But today I saw the decisive action you're capable of, and I think you should put it to use. You are protective of him, but you don't agree with him, do you, Clarke?"

Instead of picking up the shot again, Clarke lowered her lips to the bar and took a slurping sip. "Not always," she admitted. 

Lexa had yet to look away. She almost gave the impression of a creature waiting to strike, something with a quick and wicked tongue, something where you wouldn't feel the fangs until they had sunk in deep. "I know you agree with me. Fox and I are mismatched as Benedick and Beatrice. She is too weak. We need someone up there with more...fire."

Clarke surprised herself with the truth. "Yes."

"So why not say something?"

Lexa was really quite beautiful. It had been so hard to tell before, because she wore her makeup like war paint and could turn raindrops to hailstones with nothing but the tone of her voice. But her eyes were green as wet moss. 

"Sorry. Could you repeat the question?"

Lexa smiled accommodatingly. "I said why not speak up? You're the only one who can get Bellamy to change is mind. You can make this show  _good._ "

Clarke struggled to find the words, gripping the edge of the bar to steady herself. "Because...because...we have to be united to fight Mount Weather. He's been carrying this theater. We need him."

Lexa leaned in. Her hand was on the bar, nearly touching Clarke's. "You care for him."

Her penetrating stare sent Clarke's gaze scurrying to the bottom of her glass. "I care about everyone in my cast," she muttered, and found courage in necessity. She downed the rest of the shot in one gulp.

"You care about him more."

Clarke found it in herself to lift her chin. Lexa was closer somehow, she realized muzzily. Very close. To her face. "Yes," she whispered. 

Lexa's unblinking gaze caught hers like a bramble patch. "But?"

"But he puts the theater first. We both do." She swallowed thickly. "We have to."

"Don't you think you deserve better?" Lexa murmured softly. Her hand was on Clarke's now somehow, her thumb rubbing circles on the inside of her wrist.

Clarke stared at Lexa's mouth, which looked soft and gentle and so near her own. It drew her inexorably forward, into the spiral. "I don't know," she managed before their lips met. "Maybe I do."

 


	5. Understudies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke, sweetie, stop making out with the wrong people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth  
> with a kiss, and let not him speak neither."  
> -Beatrice, Act II, Scene i

Bellamy woke the next morning to nine text messages and a pounding headache. The first message he read as he lifted himself off the couch was from his sister, inquiring about his head. The other eight were from Jasper in an exponential trajectory of drunkenness from the night before. Some included pictures.

Bellamy swiped through the photos blankly, wondering how long he had been asleep, wondering whether he did, in fact, have a concussion. Then he deleted them carefully, one by one, and left the room.

Throwing on a rumpled button-up over his bloodied t-shirt, he made his way blearily up through the Dungeon to the stage, trailing his fingers along the wall to help him find his way. As if his life had turned into a waking nightmare, he found the cast and crew scattered throughout the house, lounging and laughing and...intermingling.

"Bell!" Octavia called brightly from a seat in the front row. She swung her legs off of Lincoln's lap and rose to meet him. "You're up! How's your head?"

"It fucking kills," he grumbled, with the vaguely annoyed feeling that his home was full of unwanted guests. 

"I'll bet it does," she teased. "Clarke saidja had a little braid." She reached for his curls and he slapped her hand away.

"Cut it out, Octavia, my head hurts."

"Holy god, mine too," Jasper groaned from somewhere on the floor. 

"That's what you get for betting against Ground Zero, little lightweight," Indra grinned, stooping between two rows of chairs and hauling him to his feet. Surprisingly, the Grounders around her laughed and clapped Jasper good-naturedly on the back.

"What a night, huh?" he asked, smiling palely toward Bellamy.

"Yeah, except  _I_  didn't ask for this migraine," Bellamy snapped, leaning against the stage for support.

"Right," a voice drawled from behind him. "You just purposely stepped on a giant's broken leg. That's not asking for it at all."

He turned slowly, grudgingly. He didn't want to look at Clarke today. And he didn't want to see Lexa hovering at her side. But there they both were. Clarke stood with her arms folded, her hair half in braids, wearing a clean button-up and slacks. She looked refreshed and a little hard, a little toughened. Did she know that he knew?

She and Lexa weren't touching, but what did he expect? A smear of lipstick on the side of Clarke's mouth? Matching tattoos?

"What the fuck is everyone doing here?" he demanded. "It's nine a.m."

"Actually, it's noon," Clarke said crisply. "And I called everyone in early because our rehearsal got cut off so abruptly last night. We have to make up for some lost time." A shine of anxiety slipped across her gaze as it darted over his shoulder and back. "And we need to talk about how to replace Gustus."

Bellamy turned around to glare at Octavia, who was watching him with tight anticipation. "There's nothing to talk about," he muttered, shaking his head and turning away. "Lincoln is Gustus's understudy. He goes on as Hero."

He hated the way Clarke smiled at him then, slow and brilliant as a sunrise. He wondered if Lexa saw it too, if it was the reason she touched the other woman's shoulder.

"Clarke, there's the other reason, too."

"Oh, right!" That rare smile still at full power as Octavia did squealing victory laps around the house, Clarke leaned in against the stage. "We did it, Bellamy." She gestured between herself and Lexa. "Our marketing strategy must have worked, because we sold out the first show.  _Completely_. If we hadn't set aside seats for Ground Zero's sponsors, we'd be out."

It should have made him feel good, all of it. His sister's joy and the nearly tangible evidence of success, and Clarke looking at him like that. But nothing felt good this morning, especially this. "Just the first show?" he asked dourly. The question smacked the look of excitement clean off her face.

"For now," she said with a nod, the hard look descending over her again like a curtain dropping. "But it's something to celebrate, anyway, right?"

He shoved himself away from the stage and turned back to the cast. "We'll celebrate when we have a reason to," he announced. "Right now, regardless of hangovers, we're going to rehearse." A villainous impulse nudged him. He cut his gaze over to Lexa, who looked unusually self-satisfied today behind her cold facade. "And we're finally going to run the scene with the declaration of love."

 

"'A miracle!'" Lexa recited, waving her script around as evidence. "'Here's our own hands against our hearts!'" She marched up to Fox and thrust the pages beneath her nose. "'Come,'" she hissed with a predatory grin, "'I will have thee, but, by this light, I take thee for pity.'"

Poor Fox trembled and cowered under the lights as Lexa loomed over her. "'I would not deny you,'" she squeaked, "'but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.'"

"'Peace!'" Lexa growled, grasping Fox by the back of the neck. "'I will stop your mouth!'"

Bellamy stood up as Raven, in anticipation of his reaction, raised the house lights. "No, no, no, no,  _no_. Lexa, what the fuck is that? What are you doing?"

Lexa dropped her grip on Fox, her eyes dragging over to Bellamy with their heavy-lidded lack of concern. "I'm displaying desire."

There was something about how terrible she was that gave him a deep, sick satisfaction. " _That's_  your idea of desire?" he demanded. "You're physically threatening our Beatrice. It's like  _Gaslight_  up there."

"So?"

"So? Christ, so I'm asking you if you could show me the slightest bit of emotional range!"

"Bellamy!" Clarke called behind him, sounding shocked.

Lexa didn't back down. "You said you wanted aggression and fighting. You said--"

"'I want them to fight, fight, fight right up to the moment they capitulate,'" Clarke read angrily from the notes, damning him with his own words.

Lexa smiled a thin, warm smile at her over Bellamy's head. "Precisely. That's what I'm doing."

"Not fighting  _each other,_ " he snapped, drawing clear compartments in the air with the blades of his hands. "Fighting their  _feelings_  for each other. They do everything to sabotage themselves, but they still get pulled together. I want to  _see_  that. I want to see the inexorability. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Do not speak to me like I'm a child, Bellamy, you didn't explain that before." Even though she was addressing him, Lexa's gaze still lingered on Clarke, and he snapped his fingers in the air to get her attention.

"Hey! Pretty sure I did. And maybe if you weren't eye-fucking other members of the company during notes, you would've known that."

" _Bellamy!_ "

" _What?_ "

As he turned and saw the look on Clarke's face, he realized he was shouting. An exchange of uneasy glances rippled through the house. Clarke's eyebrows were nearly at her hairline, and her even blue gaze was deconstructing him piece by piece.

"Do you want to try that again without yelling at our cast?" she asked in a voice barbed with dangerous patience.

The house had gone very quiet. Too many eyes were watching him. He doubled down. "No," he growled, folding his arms. "She has to nail that line and she's just not doing it."

He could feel Lexa's murderous gaze on the back of his head and reminded himself not to sit with his back to any doors or windows for awhile. 

"Don't blame Lexa," Clarke snapped. "This is your show.  _You_  have to give her something."

_I'll leave that up to you,_  he thought and kept it to himself through a herculean effort.

"Maybe the problem is the line's hanging too much?" Miller suggested tentatively.

"Yeah," Jasper jumped in, eager to diffuse the tension. "Benedick says, 'Peace, I'll stop your mouth,' right? What if he says that over her last line? You know, kind of cuts her off? In a--a sexy way?" he finished hopefully, his eyes darting to Maya and back to Bellamy.

Clarke frowned at him disapprovingly. "He's already shutting her down, and now you want him to step on her line?"

"Maybe the problem is with his line, then," Raven interjected over the mic. "It's aggressive and misogynistic." 

"Shuuuun the nonbeliever!" Jasper made his fingers into the sign of the cross and waved it toward the booth. As he struggled valiantly to ward her off, he stared at Bellamy in astonishment. "Are you going to stand for the impugning of Shakespeare in this sacred space?"

"The problem isn't with the line, Raven," Bellamy called impatiently over his shoulder. He glanced up into the booth and caught her eye. She raised her eyebrows at him and he softened by a fraction. "And don't blaspheme in the theater."

Wick leaned in front of the mic. "Uh, Bellamy? She's also been saying the name of the Scottish play, like, over and over since I got here. That's cool, right?"

"Can we deal with this sometime this year, please?" Clarke's voice had a new edge to it. She glared up at the booth and then back at Bellamy. There was a scrabbling anger to her today that he didn't understand. She was the last person who had the right to be mad. "It's only the most important scene in the play." 

"Rude," Jasper muttered, but softly, and to himself.

"Until Lexa stops being so aggressive, I can't work her," Bellamy stated, throwing himself down and propping his boots up on the seat in front of him. He waited Clarke out, patiently ignoring Lexa and her continued existence on the stage in front of him.

Clarke stared him down for a good twenty seconds. He met her gaze coldly. "Fine," she snapped finally, dropping her binder onto the floor. The hard plastic slap of it was like the sound of a gauntlet being thrown. "Fine."

Without looking back at him, she strode up the aisle and took the stairs two at a time. "Fox, if I could try the scene this time?" 

Fox scuttled gratefully down the steps, leaving Lexa and Clarke alone on the stage. "From 'Which is Beatrice,'" Clarke nodded to her, literally rolling up her sleeves to the elbow, goddamn her sometimes.

"Encore!" somebody from the back called, and there was a smattering of laughter. The room loosened its shoulders. Bellamy ignored the insistent kissing noises coming from directly behind him as Jasper loudly made out with his own hand. He was watching in astonishment as Lexa...relaxed. Wooden boards were incapable of appearing playful, but she managed it somehow, her mouth softening at the corners as she looked into Clarke's eyes.

"'Which is Beatrice?'" she recited, with something approaching an emotion warming her voice.

Clarke took a step toward her. "'I answer to that--'"

"Stop."

Bellamy stood, slowly, feeling his pulse pounding somewhere in his temple. He made his way up the aisle through wallowing silence, his feet weighing him down on the groaning wooden steps. He could see Clarke evaluating him as he gained the stage, and he didn't care. He was angry--not at anything in particular, although Lexa was definitely at the center of it.

"I'm going to show you exactly what I want," he told her quietly, meeting her dead-eyed stare without blinking. "So pay attention." She took a wordless step backward, opening up the space to him, her gaze as sharp and exacting as a box cutter.

He turned his back on her to face Clarke. With the house lights still up, he could see the cast shifting around out of the corner of his eye. Clarke's expression was uneasy, her gaze flickering between him and where Lexa was standing behind him.

"What are you doing?" she hissed under her breath.

He ignored the question entirely. "'Which is Beatrice?'" he began, picking up where Lexa had left off.

The room hung on the line, waiting for Clarke's response. With a shake of her head, she settled her shoulders into the character and took a deep breath, like he knew she would. Clarke Griffin, always rising to a good challenge. He folded his arms as she took a haughty step forward. "'I answer to that name,'" she announced loftily. "'What is your will?'"

"'Do not you love me?'" The question was meant to be playfully engaging, but it came out rough and more demanding than he'd intended. She gave him a look of polite surprise.

"'Why, no; no more than reason.'"

He shrugged as though he didn't quite believe her. "'Why then, your uncle and the prince and Claudio have been deceived, for they swore you did.'" 

Clarke's Beatrice had a killer's instinct. She ignored the accusation, her eyes boldly sweeping his face, searching for weakness, for answers. "'Do not  _you_  love  _me_?" she countered, as though that were the more important question.

He didn't really need to look her up and down and make a  _meh_  face before he gave the line, but it made Jasper laugh in the audience. Plus it gave him a reason to break away from her surgical blue gaze. "'Troth, no; no more than reason,'" he lied, badly, as though telling the truth would be too much of a capitulation.

She took another step toward him, but now a pressed smile curved her lips, and she planted one hand saucily on her hip. "'Why, then, my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula are much deceiv’d, for they did swear you did.'"

"'They swore that you were almost sick for me.'"

"'They swore that you were well-nigh  _dead_  for me.'"

He waved the claim away. "'’Tis no such matter.'" He turned as though to walk off the stage and leave forever, and then stopped. Over his shoulder: "'Then...you do not love me?"

He made the line sound almost regretful. He made it full of disbelief. When his eyes locked onto hers, it took her a long moment to finally shake her head, her shrugging smile unconvincing.

"'No, truly, but in friendly recompense.'"

They stared at each other, and the silence between them went all the way up to the catwalks. Jasper cleared his throat.

"Oh! Right! Uh..." Maya was fumbling with the script, but Bellamy didn't take his eyes off Clarke. Her mouth was slightly parted as though there were more to her line that she wanted to say. "'Come, cousin,'" Maya recited haltingly, "'I am sure you love the gentleman.'"

Octavia piped up with Claudio's line, laughter buried in her voice. "'And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her, for here's a paper written in his hand, a halting sonnet of his own pure brain, fashion'd to Beatrice.'"

"'And here's another,'" Lincoln added in that slow, thoughtful way of his that made things sound like truth. "'Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket, containing her affection unto Benedick.'"

Normally they had a prop to hold at this point, a page or script he could refer to. But Bellamy didn't have one this time, so instead he strode forward and took Clarke's hand in his. She startled backward in surprise, but he persisted, bringing her palm up and pressing it against her chest. He held it there firmly, feeling her heartbeat hammering through both of their hands.

"'A miracle!'" he murmured, "'here's our own hands against our hearts.'" She stopped pulling away and stood perfectly still, her fingers clenching briefly beneath his flattened palm. "'Come,'" he grinned, "'I will have thee, but, by this light, I take thee for pity.'"

Her teasing, acerbic expression had fallen away. He moved in closer to her, the curve of her breast now pressed warmly against his arm, trapped between their bodies. Her eyes darted back and forth across his face.

"..." she said.

"I would not deny you," he prompted softly, focusing on her lips, waiting for them to form the words.

"'I would not deny you,'" she rallied archly, "'but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.'" 

Her body was so soft and yielding, nearly pressed against his. He brought his other palm up to cup the back of her neck, holding her in place. Her eyes widened and her chest rose beneath his hand.

"'Peace!" he breathed, "I'll stop your mouth.'" 

Ducking down toward her parted lips, he heard her breath catch. He let his mouth almost graze hers, not quite the barest touch. 

Their eyes were still locked as he drew back half an inch. " _They kiss,_ " he murmured softly.

Someone wolf-whistled out in the audience, and the moment was gone. He dropped his hands and Clarke took a hasty step back, her breathing still uneven. Laughter and whispers broke the silence up into little pieces. Monty began a slow clap.

Clarke regained her voice quickly and sharply. "Bellamy has a good point," she announced, which surprised the hell out of him, since he hadn't realized he'd made one. Her eyes hadn't left his. "The stage cue is 'They kiss,' not 'Bellamy kisses Beatrice.'"

"Benedick," Lexa interjected quietly.

Clarke finally tore her gaze away from his, glancing past his shoulder. "What?" she asked distractedly.

"You said Bellamy." Lexa's voice was flat and chill. 

Clarke blinked. "Right. Benedick."

Bellamy turned in time to see Lexa stalk down the steps and head for the knot of Grounders in the back of the house, her shoulders rigid. He knew he should say something to ease the tension. But he didn't. 

It was Raven who finally came to Clarke's rescue. "What are you talking about, Clarke?"

Clarke looked gratefully from Lexa's retreating back to the rest of the cast. "They should kiss  _each other_ ," she explained hurriedly. "That's what we're missing right now. If Benedick just says 'shut up' and kisses her, it's not romantic. There's no universe where that's romantic."

"Well, it could be, if Fox makes it clear that she wants it," Maya called hesitantly, her hand halfway in the air. "Instead of making it seem like Beatrice is resisting it, she could act like she's just waiting for him to do it already, you know?" Bellamy couldn't help but notice that she was trying very hard not to look at Jasper directly as she said this. Jasper, for his part, was bright pink and staring determinedly at his hands.

Clarke frowned disapprovingly. "What, like she's  _asking_  for it or something? Or she's incapable of taking action herself?"

Maya wilted under her glare, so Bellamy stepped in. "It's called the Princess Leia, Clarke," he explained smoothly, his hands in his pockets. "It's where you want to be kissed but you also want to look tough, so you just keep talking and wait for the guy to interrupt you." He grinned. "With his mouth."

She looked disconcerted. "That's not a thing."

"It is, and it's--wait, have you not seen  _Star Wars_?" He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. It's a good idea, Maya." He tipped his chin up at Clarke invitingly, feeling cockier by the second. "We could run the scene again that way if you want some more stage time."

But Clarke was ignoring him. She stared across the auditorium at Lexa, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Lexa turned her head pointedly away.

"I don't like it," Indra protested from the back row, flicking her fingers dismissively. "Benedick should have to chase her. Mutual romance is boring."

Harper turned around in her seat. "That is a truly horrifying thing to say, you arrogant placemat."

Indra grinned, or rather bared her teeth. "Audiences want to see conflict, little girl, not domestic tedium."

"Conflict maybe, but not sadism!" Monroe countered.

"God, I'm so tired of conflict," Clarke sighed wearily, in a voice only Bellamy was close enough to catch. He took a step toward her, the self-satisfied feeling vanishing, but she turned away, moving down the steps to her seat and collecting her binder from the floor.

"Okay, everyone that's enough," he called, watching her go. "Let's take five."

"No," Clarke overrode, pulling her headset on around her neck and tucking the binder under her arm. "Back on stage in fifteen minutes, everyone, and we'll pick up where we left off. Maya, I'll be in the green room; you're on the timer."

"Thank you, fifteen," came the ragged chorus.

Without meeting anyone's gaze, she took off toward the Dungeon, leaving the room silent, puzzled, swinging on its hinges.

**********************

Clarke swept through the doors, shaking, her knuckles white as she clutched the binder to her chest. 

"Clarke!" She heard Bellamy's steps on the stairs as he followed her into the Dungeon. Damn him for doing that to her. Damn him for doing it in front of Lexa. She didn't slow down. He sped after her, catching up easily, his dark curls falling over his eyes. "Clarke--"

"Not yet," she muttered, listening to the sound of footsteps and conversations overhead. He kept pace, bewildered, as she hunched her shoulders and carried on. They hit the doorway of the green room and he paused, but she shook her head. "Not yet." She herded him all the way into the room and then closed the door firmly behind them.

"Now can we--"

"Okay, what the  _hell_  was that?" she shouted, whirling on him. 

Bellamy Blake had no trouble going from zero to sixty. "What?" he demanded defensively. "That was a rehearsal. A good one, finally."

She slammed her binder down on the makeup counter. "You humiliated Lexa in front of the entire cast!"

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. "Yeah," he said carelessly, with that cruel press to his mouth. "So what?"

She made an effort to lower her voice, but it was becoming harder and harder as this day went on. "Are you trying to get her to quit?"

He snorted a humorless laugh and stared up at the ceiling. "That'd be Christmas come early."

"Bellamy, this isn't a joke! We were making progress with these people. They were starting to  _like_  us. If Lexa leaves, she'll take all the Grounders with her.  _And_  the sponsors."

His gaze returned to her, his dark, liquid eyes hardening. "So she gets special treatment now? Fuck that. Just because she's your girlfriend doesn't mean she can phone it in whenever she wants."

There was a stunned moment of silence, and then Clarke felt her mouth split into an incredulous smile that couldn't quite cover her embarrassment. "Oh my god, is that what this has all been about?" 

"No," he growled, shifting his feet and looking away. "This is about saving the Ark. Which we can't do if your girlfriend ruins the entire production." 

"Stop saying that!" Her temper flared and it took an effort to tamp it back down. "She's not my girlfriend, Bellamy."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, okay," he drawled. "So, on a scale of one to a relationship, how would you rate making out with her in the middle of a fucking  _bar_?"

She met his scornful gaze with equal derision. "That's not breaking your stupid rule. And it's not any worse than Raven, is it?"

"Raven?" He stared at her blankly. "What'd Raven do?"

"You!"

He held a look of puzzled indignation for a brief second before realization came scorching across his face and he went pale beneath his freckles.

"Oh," he said insufficiently, dropping his gaze. Clarke's lip twisted. The practiced belligerence returned to his voice. "Well, so what?"

She had to turn away, untying and retying her hair into braids behind her head just to give her hands something to do. "So, nothing," she muttered, trying to conceal the bitterness in her voice. "Let's just...run this scene again right now so we can tell Lexa what to do.  _Nicely_  this time." She waved toward the makeup table. "Grab a script."

He didn't move. "Raven wasn't anything, Clarke," he said in a strange voice. "She was just...there." 

The explanation didn't help; the words twisted in her gut. "Yeah, I know."

She pulled a script from the binder herself and tossed it at him; he caught it against his chest without looking at it. "Clarke."

"Let's just bang this out already," she said flatly, striding past him into the room. She weaved around the coffee table, aiming for one of the lumpy couches, eager to put distance between them. "The cast is waiting."

He caught her by the elbow, stopping her in her tracks. The script fell from his hand and splayed across the floor. "Reyes doesn't count, okay? It wasn't a romance. She didn't fuck things up for this theater." He looked briefly irritated with himself. "And I don't owe you an explanation for the people I sleep with."

Her eyebrows went up. "I think that was my original point," she replied coolly.

"I'm saying it didn't mean anything."

"Fine."

"She was just upset about Finn."

"And you didn't try to talk her out of it." She put no emphasis on the word "her," but it didn't matter. They both heard it. His dark eyes searched her face intently and found something there.

"No," he agreed in a slow voice. His hand tightened around her elbow. "I didn't. Not her."

She opened her mouth and then stopped, her eyes darting back and forth between his. Heat started at her ears and crept along her cheeks. She suddenly realized how close he was standing to her and, for that matter, how low the ceiling was, how crowded the room.

"We should get back," she said finally, mostly to herself.

To her surprise he shrugged, dropping her arm and stepping to the side to let her pass. "Sure."

His sudden acquiescence was a startling disappointment. The half-dozen steps to the door yawned wide in front of her, but she didn't have much of a choice now but to go, and quickly. Ducking his dark, piercing gaze, she stepped around the edge of the coffee table, her hip brushing against his thigh as she went. He pivoted to watch her but didn't move from his spot, his hands deep in the pockets of his slacks. She made it to the door and jerked it open a crack.

"And here you had me thinking you wanted me to kiss you."

She paused with her hand on the doorknob as all of the blood in her veins suddenly stopped and changed directions. Pasting on a politely incredulous smile, she turned around. "Excuse me?"

"For the show, I mean," he said, moving toward her. The coffee table was between them, but he simply stepped on top of it and jumped down in front of her. His voice had taken on the slightest edge. " _Much Ado About Nothing?_  Isn't that why we came down here?" She leaned back into the door, which closed with a loud  _snick_. His eyes roamed her face. "Didn't you want to run the kiss?"

She folded her arms over her chest, hoping it muffled her jackhammer heartbeat. "I did," she said as archly as possible. "But now we have to get back. They'll need us out there in a minute."

"Maya will let us know when." He reached up to her neck and shifted her headset slightly askew with one finger. She straightened it automatically and felt some of her fire return. Narrowing her eyes at him, she made her voice derisive.

"Are you sure you're up for it? You didn't run it on stage." 

His look of surprise lasted an instant. "Weren't you the one who didn't want me humiliating Lexa?" His hand settled against the door near her chin, trapping a few wild strands of her hair beneath his palm. "Because that would've done it," he breathed, his deep, scraping voice rough and warm as a guarantee.

"A kiss in a play doesn't mean anything," she scoffed. "It  _shouldn't_  mean anything. But you didn't do it."

He wasn't even meeting her challenging gaze; his eyes wandered her hairline and then moved down to study her jaw. "Maybe I didn't want to," he suggested idly. He took a step between her legs. She had flattened herself against the door, and now their faces were mere inches apart.

"Good," she lied breathlessly. "I think that's for the best."

His mouth was curling at the edges as he leaned in, but his eyes were full of dark fire and filthy promises. 

"In that case," he murmured, his breath hot against her cheek. "Maybe Benedick shouldn't kiss Beatrice at all." 

"Uh-huh." Not her most eloquent argument, and she tried to rally, but his lips were grazing her jaw now. She could feel her pulse pounding somewhere behind her ears. Her fingers found themselves twisted in his belt loops, pulling his hips close enough to brush against her own. "Because..." she managed, "...he hates the idea of relationships..."

She felt him groan against her neck. His teeth came up to close softly around her earlobe and it pulled a whimper from her that she couldn't stop.

"And because it will fuck up just about everything..." he muttered thickly. 

Her breath caught in her throat as he began to suck gently on her earlobe. Pushing his T-shirt up past the waistband of his pants, her fingertips slid along the hem. His skin was hot to the touch, the hard muscles of his stomach jumping beneath her hand.

"And because..." Her mind felt like it had been turned upside down and shaken vigorously. He was trailing his lips along her temple, his strong, warm hand cupping her chin and tilting her head up, and why couldn't she just shut her stupid, endless mouth? "Because he's afraid she's into someone else."

It was the sort of pointlessly provocative jab that had always kept moments like this from actually happening, but this time he just muttered, "Shut up, Clarke," and dragged her mouth to his.

All of her breath left her in an instant. The kiss burned through her, turning all of her bones into melted wax. Her hands slid up the hard length of his chest and anchored themselves along the open collar of his shirt, holding him to her, afraid that at any moment one of them would come to their senses.

Lexa's kisses the night before had been a whirlpool--possessive, intractable, pulling her inexorably into the spiral. But Bellamy's mouth on hers was a spark, a hot wind, a wildfire. She closed her eyes and kissed him back.

His hands fell away from her face to settle on her hips. She moved her knee up his thigh, hooking it against his waist, pulling him closer until she could feel how aroused he was, until he was pressed hard against her. 

The stage manager in her was hammering for attention, but there was liquid fire racing through her, and Bellamy's tongue was in her mouth, and he smelled so fucking  _good_ , and when her hands traveled up to run through his hair he exhaled raggedly, crowding her further back against the door.  

His deft fingers were trailing down the front of her shirt, nimbly unhooking buttons as they went. The sides fell open. She shrugged the shirt down to her elbows, leaving her wearing only the headset around her neck and the lacy black bra which she had--shamefully--picked out that morning with Lexa in mind.  _What the hell am I doing?_  

"Bellamy," she panted, her lips buzzing against his. His palms were on her rib cage, rough and warm, sliding up and down her sides. She lost her train of thought entirely.

"Dammit, Clarke." He broke away from her mouth, his thumbs sweeping along the underwire of her bra. She twisted her fingers into his curly hair as his tongue slid along her jaw. Her shoulder blades were pressed flat against the door, her body arching into his hands. He kissed his way down her neck, his open mouth trailing over the rising tops of her breasts.  

"This is a bad idea," he groaned. His fingers curled over the cups of her bra, dragging them down to her ribs and exposing her nipples to the tingling heat of his breath. "Such a fucking bad idea." His lips closed around her, his tongue hot and wet against her skin.

There was a jarring screech of static from around Clarke's neck as her headset crackled to life. "Clarke?" Maya called, her voice loud in the little room.

Bellamy leapt away from her with insulting rapidity, but Clarke was too busy hauling her bra back up to give it too much thought. For a moment she had forgotten who she was, but now it all came flooding back like heat in her cheeks.

"We'll be right up!" she called in a desperately normal voice, trying to lessen the strain of it as she tugged her shirt back up over her shoulders.

"You know she can't hear you, right?" Bellamy growled, and she was startled to hear anger in his voice, harsh and undirected. He was already striding across the room, his back to her, his hands in fists at his sides. Those hands had just been on her body--the whorls of his fingertips were still burning against her ribs.

She should have turned her mic on immediately, but instead she took the extra seconds to button up her shirt with shaking fingers. Somehow, she wanted herself covered as quickly as possible. Shame and confusion were beginning to crawl up her skin.

She touched the switch on her mic. "Thanks, Maya," she said more calmly, watching Bellamy's shoulders rise and fall with his uneven breath. "We'll be right up." He didn't turn around. "Bellamy might need another minute." That got no reaction either. She fumbled for the doorknob at her side, hastened to go.

"This show has to do well, Clarke," he said to the wall.  She paused halfway out the door, baffled and starting to feel insulted.

"I know that," she said slowly. "That isn't new."

His head tipped back and she knew he was closing his eyes, counting his breaths, focusing on a point in the distance, all those things that had never worked for him. "It's just that we can't--you can't--" 

"Can't what?" She knew this one by heart. It left her cold.

"Do you think I haven't always--" He stopped himself, his hands clenching and unclenching. Turning his head so that she could only see his profile, he let all his breath out in a sigh. "You have to end things with Lexa. We have to keep this--all of this--professional."

The blind injustice of it took her breath away. For an instant she had no words to say to him at all, and then Shakespeare filled her mouth like bitter stones. "'An you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to.'"

She slammed the door on the way out.

 

She resurfaced from the Dungeon to the sound of laughter. Opening the door, she found Grounders and Arkers alike in a rough circle within the audience, passing beef jerky around and side-eyeing each other into next week.

"So we're not allowed to call you Grounders, and we're not allowed to call you George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words, so we asked Clarke what we  _are_  allowed to call you," Harper was saying to Indra, one arm draped over the back of her seat. "And she said, 'Use your imagination and a first grader's vocabulary.'"

"And then Bellamy said--" Jasper cut in excitedly, "'Just combine a mean adjective with a random noun, and Clarke can't get mad.'"

"I don't get it," Indra said flatly, raising one eyebrow.

"Like, I can call you a hopeless dishrag and not get in trouble," Monroe cut in. 

"You unctuous urinal!" Miller grinned.

"You hellacious nightstand!" Monty offered.

"I see..." Indra said with the first stirrings of amusement. She lifted her head slowly. "You...vegetarian."

Jasper howled. "Oh my god, that's so much better."

"You shit weasel?" another Grounder suggested, followed by more raucous laughter.

"How is that an adjective?"

Maya saw Clarke first and managed to quiet the group with a remarkably authoritative gesture. "Hey, Clarke," she called worriedly. "Everything go okay?"

"It was fine." Clarke heard the door swing open behind her as Bellamy's rumpled, masculine scent followed her in. "We were just rehearsing the scene, but it didn't work."

"So let's run it again," he called roughly over her head, without missing a beat. "With the actual actors who are supposed to be up there. Yes, Lincoln, you too."

Clarke couldn't stand to look at him. She fled to the back, letting Maya usurp her usual spot and do the line calls. She had a million other things she should attend to, but she couldn't make herself do any of them. She just sat in a seat by the door, tucked into the shadows, and watched Bellamy and Lexa battle it out on stage.

_What the hell am I doing?_  Maybe Bellamy was right, maybe romance was, and had always been, the bane of this theater's existence. Maybe she was destroying this thing she was trying so hard to save.

But if he could kiss her like that, as an ostensible rehearsal or not, couldn't that be good for the company? They'd been running a theater together for years, why not as a team? Why not as a couple?

But then there was Lexa, who might actually keep this theater afloat, who had a logical ambition that sparked something in Clarke, that made her rise to the occasion. And Lexa--

"Clarke."

Clarke looked up, startled. The rehearsal was over. People were streaming past her on their way to the bar. Bellamy was already gone. Maya stood over her.

"Hey, Maya, good rehearsal toda--"

"Clarke." At her tone of voice, Clarke stilled and really looked at her, noted the urgent strain in her voice. There was something wrong. "We need to talk. Now. It's..." She hesitated. "It's about Mt. Weather."

Clarke took in the girl's pale visage and nodded shortly. "Okay, my office. And grab Lexa. Get Bellamy too, wherever he is."

But Bellamy was nowhere to be found. He wasn't in the green room, in his office, or at the bar with the others. So ten minutes later Lexa and Maya joined Clarke in her room just off the box office, which actually had daylight, even though it was fading now with the sunset. She spent so much time in the Dungeon these days that she'd forgotten how nice it was to have a life that occasionally appeared diurnal.

Lexa leaned against the desk while Maya sat on the windowsill, facing out into the sunshine with her eyes closed. "I'm not an intern from LaSalle-Backus," she whispered finally. "I mean, I do go to school there, but I already have a job. With Mt. Weather."

Lexa and Clarke exchanged glances that rippled in each other like a disturbed pool. 

"My dad works there, all my friends work there, I've worked there since I was like fourteen. So when they asked me to come here, I said I would. They asked me to spy on you, and I thought it would be okay, but I can't do it anymore. I don't like what they're doing and I thought--" She paused, her lip twisting wretchedly. "I thought you should know."

"What are they planning?" Lexa demanded coldly.

Maya finally turned her face away from the dying light. "They've already done it," she grimaced. "The day that tickets went on sale, Cage Wallace bought them all."

Clarke didn't like being in the dark. "That makes no sense. Why would he buy out a show if he wants it to fail?"

"Because he knows about the sponsors," Lexa interjected with a dark certainty. She folded her arms over her chest. "He knows they'll only back us if the show does well."

Maya nodded miserably. "No one is going to show up on opening night. You'll be playing to an empty house." Her eyes darted in terror from Lexa to Clarke. "I didn't want any of this to happen. I--I really like you guys and I--"

"Maya, it's fine," Clarke said sternly. "You're not the first person to spy on us and then change their mind." She glanced automatically over her shoulder into the lobby. "But Bellamy is going to lose it."

Lexa had yet to show any signs of anxiety, but Bellamy's name made her flinch, just slightly. "Then we won't tell him."

"We have to tell him. We're screwed."

"No, we're not." A small, gleaming smile was starting in Lexa's eyes, and it did nothing to comfort Clarke. "Clarke, this is an opportunity. Mt. Weather already thinks it's won. So let's open another online box office. We'll sell tickets to the opening show for half price. We fill the seats and make  _even more money_."

Clarke raked her fingers through her hair, shaking her braids free. "Are you out of your mind, Lexa? What if they find out? What if they send their--their minions to our opening show and try to shut us down for double-booking?"

Lexa remained unfazed. "We'll push the time back. We'll seat the half-price tickets just before the show starts."

"And if two people show up for the same seat--?"

"We'll say it was a mistake. We'll just seat the Mt. Weather goons so they can't sue us. Hotels do it all the time. We'll comp the other people for a different show."

Clarke shook her head. "I don't like it, Lexa. It's risky, it could get us shut down, and--worse--it could screw over our actual loyal supporters."

Lexa waved dismissively. "So we'll make more. An audience is an audience."

"Lexa--"

Lexa took a step into her space, her hand settling on the back of Clarke's neck. "'Peace, I'll stop your mouth,'" she whispered with a coy half-smile.

Clarke wrenched away with more fervor than either of them expected. "Don't." She felt cold all the way through and nearly numb from the events of the day. The question she'd been wrestling with all day was settling itself in her mind. 

When it came down to being with a man who didn't care about her enough or a woman who didn't care about anyone else, she'd take being alone.

There was a reigning moment of extremely awkward silence. Clarke took a deep breath. "We'll do it," she said. "And we'll hope it doesn't blow up in our faces. Maya?" The girl stood up from the windowsill, hurriedly smoothing her skirt. "Set up an alternate box office and send it through our donor and subscriber channels. But Mt. Weather doesn't find out that we know, got it? We have to hope like hell that none of their people show up."

"I got it," she whispered, and scurried for the hall.

"And Maya?" The girl paused in the doorway and Clarke managed a small smile. "Thank you for telling us."

A brief nod and she was gone. Lexa started to follow her out.

"Lexa, wait." Clarke hesitated, wishing somehow that she could redo the last twenty-four hours and make a thousand different choices. "We need to talk."

********************************

Octavia was the only one to find him, or maybe she was just the only one to look. The black box was dark when she opened the door, but he wasn't hiding. He was sitting in an open chair with his feet up on the seat in front of him.

"Hey," she said.

"Go away, Octavia, I'm not in the mood."

She ignored the angry tone and settled into the seat next to him, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling with her hands folded in her lap. It was the first time they'd been alone together in months. She gave the silence a long moment before she spoke. "So what's going on with you today, Bell?"

The perfectly normal tone of voice she affected made him miss her so much it hurt. It pulled a sigh from him, and not even an angry one. "I did something stupid," he admitted.

"With Clarke?" He shrugged. "Near Clarke?" she pressed. "To Clarke?" He shot her a venomous glare and she pushed her smile down. "Sorry. It's just so obvious. It's been obvious for ever."

He put his head in his hands and stared through the floor. "I kissed her."

"You kissed her."

"Yeah."

"You  _kissed_  her."

"Yeah."

"Like one minute after everyone in the universe saw her make out with Lexa in the bar."

"Oh, and I ordered her not to see Lexa, too."

" _Bell!_ "

"Yeah."

"You had no right to--"

"I  _know_."

She settled down. "So, you're trying to keep two groups of people from killing each other, and now you're stealing away their director's girlfriend?"

"Clarke's not her girlfriend."

"I'm just saying, do you know what killed  _The Dropship_? And don't say Lincoln!" she added sternly.

"I'm not going to say a love tri--"

"A  _love_  triangle, exactly. So what are you doing, Bell?"

"Could you not right now, Octavia? I don't know what the hell is happening either." He jammed his boot heel angrily into the seat in front of him. "Why'd this have to happen now?"

To his surprise, Octavia burst into laughter. He blinked furiously at her, and she squashed it down into a grin. "Oh, come on. Be serious." When he just looked at her, she shook her head in disbelief. "It happened now because Lexa happened now. Jesus, Bell, you're so jealous."

He growled. "I don't want Clarke."

She folded her arms and rolled her eyes. "Right. You just don't want anyone else to have her." He clenched his jaw and said nothing. "You know what I think? I think you're scared to make yourself an option because you think she'll end up leaving again."

He shot her a sidelong glance. "She wouldn't be the first."

Her smile faded. "Hey, listen--"

"Forget it."

"Bell--"

"I said forget it."

He dropped his head back into his hands and ran his fingers roughly through his hair. She waited him out, watching him with perfect stillness. "I didn't abandon you, Bell," she said finally. "It wasn't like that." She looked at him evenly, without embarrassment. Of everyone he knew, Octavia had always been the most emotionally straightforward. "You're my brother. You're more important to me than anything."

"Then why'd you leave?" It was the question he'd been too afraid to ask for way too long. He'd sorted through it a million times and there wasn't an answer that didn't make him feel discarded.

"Because I wanted to be me, and not just the person you thought I should be. I wanted to find out who that was." She sighed and looked away, her gaze swooping up into the dark corners of the house. "And also maybe because I knew I could come back. If I needed you, or you needed me, I could come right back."

He wanted to tell her that he did need her--that he'd needed her to come back a long time ago. "I told you you could."

"I know. And I did." She gave him a humorless little smile and nudged him with her elbow. "If you hadn't made me choose, I would have stayed right here, you know."

He snorted. "Right. With Lincoln."

"And with you."

He had nothing to say to that. He'd spent a whole year missing his sister, furious with her for not prioritizing her family over her boyfriend. He'd never considered that he was doing the same thing with his theater. He stared down at his hands.

"I'm sorry, O," he said roughly, possibly for the first time ever. The words drew blood coming out.

He felt her smile. She leaned across the seat and kissed him swiftly on the cheek. "I love you, Big Brother." He didn't look up. After a moment she stood. "I gotta go. Indra's teaching me combat moves at the bar tonight."

"For  _Much Ado_?" he frowned.

"For fun! Although we were talking about doing Mackers next season."

He raised his head skeptically. "Not with the Grounders."

"Why not? We're allies now, aren't we?" 

Moving with an easy grace he hadn't realized she'd developed, she headed toward the door. At the end of the aisle she stopped and turned around.

"Bell?"

"Mm?"

"If you're really worried about Clarke leaving over this love triangle crap, there's one thing you can do."

"What?"

She shrugged, wry and sincere in that way she had. "Don't make her choose."

He sat in the dark long after the door clicked shut. Then he stood, with purpose, and went to where he knew he'd find her.

 

She was on the main stage and she was alone, kneeling in front of the backdrop, canvas spread out beneath her and paint smeared everywhere. The ghost light cast its eerie, wavery light across most of the stage, illuminating Clarke's hunched figure as she worked. No matter how often he offered to outsource it, she always took on set design. Right now she was finishing the final corner of a rose garden, her hands moving deftly and dreamily across the scene to create the illusion of dew-dropped petals.

Bellamy watched her work as he made his way up the aisle, feeling a warm serenity loosen his muscles as he did so. Most of the time Clarke was a hurricane of ideas, deadlines, and demands, slowly and steadily hammering their production into shape. When she painted though, everything about her looked soft and deliberate. Peaceful.

He could tell when she noticed him by the way she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. With careful precision, she dabbed her fingers into a puddle of red paint and then swirled them into a slurry of white before applying the new hue to the backdrop. Paint rolled in rivulets down her arms to her elbows. He climbed the stage and stood on the edge of the crinkling canvas to watch her.

"Hey," he said.

She turned to look at him over her shoulder. "Hey."

They stared at each other for a long moment across the broken beams of the day, her blue eyes weary but unguarded, his hands deep in his pockets. 

"Do you want to get out of here?" he asked finally.

She appraised him a second longer before giving the slightest shake of her head. "Not really, no." 

"Good. Me neither."

He waited until the softest outline of a smile crossed her lips before he knelt down next to her. They worked side by side in silence, their clothes spattered and flecked, daubing red paint into the dark corners of the ghost-lit canvas.

 


	6. Technical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you were wondering if any of this would actually follow Season 2 and take place in Mt. Weather at some point, I'm sorry to disappoint you. But Mt. Weather is a place where Bellamy covers up his beautiful body and curly hair, and we just can't have that.
> 
> #freethecurls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "There was never counterfeit of  
> passion came so near the life of passion as she  
> discovers it."  
> -Leonato, Act II, Scene iii

Maybe Bellamy was right.

"You wouldn't believe the change in this cast in the last two weeks, Kane," Clarke said honestly, adding _Now that we're keeping all our tongues in our own mouths_ silently to herself. She tilted her laptop further back on her desk and stared into the pinhole camera, trying to keep nothing but confidence in her expression. "The show is going to be a success."

Kane's eyes were large and brown and empathetic as a basset hound's, but there was wariness there that had accumulated after all of the Ark's previous failures. "I'm still not sure what you're asking me to do, Clarke."

"Just give us a fighting chance. We've taken care of the funds. We have the donor support. I just need you to tell my mom all that so that she doesn't accept Mt. Weather's offer."

He shifted, visibly uncomfortable. "I'm just a director, Clarke. I'm not an assessor."

She leaned forward in her chair. "You're a board member for the Ark. And more importantly, you're not related to my mother."

He smiled thinly. "Thank god for that." 

She didn't return the smile, leaning in urgently instead. "You can be the one to talk to her. Please."

He tilted his head slightly, his piercing gaze cutting right across space and pixels. "You're trying to avoid the appearance of nepotism," he said finally. "You want people to know that you got out of this mess yourself, without your mother's help."

"It's a good show, Marcus," she replied evenly, not denying the accusation. "Bellamy keeps talking about getting your feedback before we open Saturday."

Fondness softened the rugged planes of Kane's face. "How is Mr. Blake?"

 _We don't touch anymore. He still sleeps in his office. He runs himself ragged. Sometimes he looks at me like I ripped the last four pages out of every book he ever loved. Sometimes he looks at me like I am the last four pages._  

"He's great," she chirped instead. "Finishing up a tech rehearsal as we speak." 

Kane smiled sardonically. "I'm surprised at you, Clarke. I wouldn't peg you for someone who'd abandon tech just to Skype your mom's boyfriend."

"I trust Bellamy."

That statement earned her an impressed sort of nod. "And what about Lexa?"

_She touches me all the time--along my spine, across my collarbone, down my braid--but always briefly. I couldn't tell you where she sleeps. I've never seen her fray at the edges, although she works as hard as any of us. Sometimes she looks at me like she wants to consume me, to absorb all my power._

Clarke shrugged. "I trust her too."

He looked skeptical. "Is that right?"

For proof, Clarke held her phone up to the camera. The screen was black. She had turned it off. "Come see the last dress on Friday. And tell my mom, Marcus. The Ark lives. The show is good."

He leaned away from the screen, his expression thoughtful. "Okay."

She would not let the joy fizzing in her chest reach her expression. "Okay, you'll talk to her?"

His smile was nearly impish. "Okay, we'll reject Mt. Weather's offer. After I've seen the show."

When the call ended, Clarke closed her laptop, turned her phone on, and laid back on her bed, allowing herself exactly one minute of basking. The soporific pull of her pillows was strong, and she fought the urge to get a reasonable amount of sleep for once. After all, she had to find out how tech had gone. 

Her phone booted up slowly, and she pushed down the accompanying anxiety at having turned it off for some stupid grand gesture. The show was fine. The show was _good_. She glanced at the clock on the night table. Ten p.m. The cast would already be at the bar, Grounders and Arkers alike. They might even all be getting along.

It was a grudging thing to admit, Bellamy having a good point. But with the new professional distance between him, Clarke, and Lexa, the show had benefited from remarkably stabilizing effects. There was the day that Indra finally deigned to kiss Lincoln during the wedding scene (even if she did conspicuously wipe her mouth afterward). The day Jasper called "Line!" for the fifth time and Echo called back, "You forgetful fuchsia!" to general laughter. The day Raven lit the stage the way she wanted to and Bellamy had nothing bad to say about Lexa's performance. 

Clarke's phone buzzed with the accumulated missed texts. One. Two.

Eight.

Her heart beginning to pound with the first stirrings of concern, she scrolled down the list: Lexa, Lexa, Lexa, Lexa, Lexa, Lexa, Lexa, Lexa, all of them the same, each one a variation on the same theme:  _Come to the theater. Now._ Except the last one:

_Never mind._

Clarke scrambled off the bed and headed blindly for the door.

Maybe Bellamy was wrong.

 

"Lexa?" Clarke pushed open the doors to the auditorium, her feeling of panic quickly turning to confusion at the scene laid out before her.

Bellamy stood in the center of the stage, his profile silhouetted by the row of can lights behind him, his dark hair raked across his forehead. He was surrounded by mist billowing around his feet, spilling in tendrils over the side of the stage. Electric guitar music would not have been out of place.

Clarke stood there for a long moment as her racing heartbeat started up an entirely different samba. She took a deep breath and shook her head, reminding herself that in the theater some emergencies were not actual emergencies. She couldn't decide if she was relieved or pissed.

Bellamy didn't seem to notice her; he was pacing back and forth, his phone to his ear. "No, Raven, I _tried_  to turn it off, and it didn't do anything. A what? Hold on." Turning it on speaker, he knelt down and set his phone on the ground. The mist parted some, and Clarke could finally see the fog machine in the middle of the stage, both ports going full blast. "Okay," he called, "I've got the settings function. What now?" 

Raven's voice was tinny and surrounded by background noise. "Do you seen an actuator anywhere?"

Bellamy sighed. "I have no idea what that is. Could you just--could you come down here, please?"

"No can do, El Capitan," came Wick's self-satisfied voice over the line. "We're not at the bar. We're at my house." 

The sounds of a scuffle immediately ensued. "Wick, give me back my phone!"

"We're naked, Bellamy. Your rule can suck it!"

"Oh my god, Wick, you--!"

The line went dead and Clarke started to laugh. Bellamy jerked his head up, gouts of fog rolling over his shoulders and trailing along his thighs. He squinted up the aisle at her.

"Clarke? I thought you were ass-kissing Kane. What are you doing here?"

She ignored the question as she walked down the aisle. "What the hell is that?"

"It's a fog machine."

"Where'd it come from?"

"Craigslist." He glanced down at it with something akin to pride. "It's a piece of shit."

"So you bought it why?"

"The Scottish play. Next season."

The optimism in his voice was such a beautiful thing. Clarke had a warm vision of the foreseeable future--putting on plays with Bellamy, sharing the theater upkeep with Lexa, and never letting a second of it change. _This is my home_ , she thought, leaning with her forearms against the edge of the stage and watching Bellamy struggle over the top panel. She liked how tight his curls got when they were damp with sweat, the way he swore in a straight line while working, with very little inflection or variance.

"Motherfucking shitstick douchenozzle, where the hell do you belong, you little bastard, I just unscrewed you."

"You could just wait for Raven," she reminded him, amused.

He didn't look up from his work. "Are you making a suggestion or are you ordering me around?"

In response, she laid her fist against her palm. Without lowering his screwdriver from the panel, he held out his other fist and muttered "Rock, Paper, Scissors" without bothering to watch the result. As always, he started with Rock. As always, he lost.

He remained unperturbed in his concentration. "I can wait for Raven if you really want, but we'll probably have asphyxiated by then."

Clarke folded her arms. "Meaning?"

"Sounded like she and Wick were pretty busy, and this theater can only hold so much fog." He paused to wave his screwdriver in her face. "Again, just another reason why I've always said theater fraternization is such a bad idea."

"Hypocrite," she muttered without thinking. His head shot up, mouth open, and she felt her cheeks immediately grow warm. She'd only meant to tease him about his tryst with Raven, as she always would have before. But that obviously wasn't how he took it. In his expression she saw that while this was the first time either of them had alluded to what could only euphemistically be described as their stage kiss two weeks prior, it wasn't the first time he'd thought about it. 

"Glass houses, Princess," he cautioned with that curling smile he had, his gaze flickering from her eyes to her mouth and back. He turned back to his work before she could come up with a retort. "Now, I have to figure out how to turn this thing off so we can actually find the stage on Saturday. So unless you need something...?"

The reminder jolted her. "Oh, that. Do you know what Lexa needed so urgently that she had to send me a thousand texts?"

"No idea," he grunted, wedging the flat edge of the screwdriver between metal gears. He tossed his head toward the stage door. "A bunch of people were here earlier, but I think they left. Check the Dungeon if you want."

But the Dungeon was a silent sarcophagus the moment she stepped through the door, the fluorescent light sickly on the white cinder block walls. She had felt this kind of emptiness in a theater before, and it filled her guts with icy water to sense it now. It was more than empty.

 _Abandoned._ Just thinking the word set her heart thumping again. 

The door to Bellamy's office was open a crack, with warmer, buttery light spilling into the hallway. She headed toward it with a feeling of growing trepidation.

The room was empty, which made the note on the desk that much more noticeable. She picked it up and read it through once without making sense of any of it. All she knew was that the paper shook in her hand. She sat down at the desk and tried again. 

She was on the fourth read before full understanding took hold. The words "I'm sorry" scrawled at the bottom of the page still held no meaning by the sixth.

When Bellamy walked in ten minutes later, her eyes were dry and her throat was coated in broken glass. 

"I finally got the fog machine turned off if you want to head down to the Bun--" He glanced inside the doorway and looked around. "The hell are you doing sitting in here by yourself?"

She held the note out wordlessly, without looking at him. "They're gone."

"Who?"

"Lexa," she said numbly. "The Grounders. They left. Mt. Weather offered them a different performance space across town that they can use year-round, and they took it."

He gave the note a cursory glance and tossed it aside, as though it couldn't possibly tell him anything. "No. There's gotta be a mistake. You and Lexa were..." He trailed off, staring at the doorjamb with steely-mouthed discomfort. "She wouldn't. Right?"

Clarke stared down at the desk. "Well, I tried calling her," she said in her normal voice, except it was her normal voice with only sharp edges left in it. "She wouldn't pick up. Just sent me a text." She pulled her phone from her jacket pocket and read it aloud. "'Sry. Made decision with head not [heart emoji].'" Clarke shook her head, feeling her lips twist as she tossed the phone across the desk. "I sure know how to pick 'em, huh?"

"Clarke..." Bellamy's voice was the dry sweep of wind before a thunderstorm.

"Can we do this later?" She stood briskly, smoothing her hands against her skirt. Was it only an hour ago that she'd dressed for the Skype call--that she'd had such optimism? She turned to face him. "I have to go tell the rest of the cast." 

Bellamy's brow furrowed. "Tell them what, exactly?"

"That we lost the theater. That the show is over."

His nostrils flared. "Just like that?" he demanded as she slipped past him and headed into the hall.

"I don't know what else you expect me to do." 

"Clarke--" He caught her by the elbow, spinning her around. "I expect you to stay here and talk to me."

She didn't pull away. "Don't you get it, Bellamy? The donors are gone too. Their support was based on our first show, _and we don't have a show_." 

He dropped her arm, and she could see understanding tighten his lips. She should have been more upfront with him. She shouldn't have trusted Lexa. The walls were leaning in on either side of her and everything was crumbling. She was being buried by the weight of it all, and she knew it was entirely her fault; she could see it in his face. 

"You were right, okay?" she said tiredly. "I screwed up. I screwed all of this up." She sagged against the wall. "So just spare me the lecture, Bellamy, please."

He stepped back, looking surprised and offended. "I'm not going to lecture you. Jesus, Clarke."

She stared at the ground. "Yeah, well, maybe you should."

He shook his head, his gravelly voice low and struggling valiantly to remain calm. "I'm trying to figure this out, same as you. We can fix this. We can." She looked up to meet his gaze. His large, dark eyes took her expression in carefully and seemed to read the defeat there. He fell back against the wall opposite her, running his hand through his curly hair. "How many of them actually took off?"

"I don't know. All of them?" The answer choked her. "And we have to play to a packed house in less than a week." She searched his face. "So how do we fix it, then? Tell me you have a plan."

Bellamy shook his head. "Not really. I mean, we could get some understudies in quick so we don't have to refund anyone's ticket."

Clarke shook her head bleakly. "We've lost three of our leads and most of the understudies. Mt. Weather knows they've won--they wouldn't have bought Ground Zero a new space otherwise. The Ark will be theirs by the first of the year."

They stood there, leaning their shoulders into opposite walls and searching for the solution to the unsolvable in the other's expression. It had always been there before. Their feet were a tangle in the middle of the hall.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. It was the absolute last thing she'd expected him to say.

"For what?" she replied bitterly. "This was my fault. I'm the one who thought I could pull off this deal. I shouldn't have gotten everyone involved in this."

"Not that. I meant--" He hooked her ankle with his own, staring at her sensible black flats as though with the deepest concentration. "I meant sorry about Lexa."

The name dug in like a fingernail prying up the corner of a scab. "I'm getting used to it."

"No, you're not," he said gruffly. "You don't get used to people running out on you." 

He pushed himself away from the wall before she could respond. "You stay here. I'll go to the bar and tell the cast." She started to protest, but he shook his head curtly. "Just let me do this, Clarke." 

"Why?"

He looked away, his curly hair not long enough to hide the quiet desperation in his large brown eyes. "...I need to see if Octavia's still there."

She heard the shadow of doubt in his voice, the premonition of abandonment there, and she remembered that Bellamy was the same as her, that they both bore scars that went deeper than bone. As he started to move away, she caught him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him back, startled, into her arms.

He stiffened immediately, but she held on, her arms around his neck and her chin resting in his collarbone. It was like trying to embrace a reluctant brick wall. But under the acidic stink of the fog machine's chemicals was the warm smell of him, familiar and comforting. "She stayed," Clarke whispered, tightening her hold, turning her face into his neck. "I'm sure she stayed, Bellamy."

It took a long moment, but then his arms came up around her, and when they did he squeezed her so tightly she nearly lost her breath. For the space of one of Hamlet's soliloquies they stood in the narrow hallway and clung to each other, the back of Bellamy's collar still clutched in Clarke's fist. His slow, steady breath fluttered in her hair. Why was it this, out of everything that had just happened, that finally brought tears burning in the corners of her eyes? When was the last time she'd been held like this? 

Perhaps the same thought made him break away, his eyes averted. "Stay here," he said again, roughly. "I'll be back in twenty minutes. In the meantime, try to come up with a miracle."

*****************************

The Bunker was unusually quiet when Bellamy walked in, and without the cloud of smoke from the clove cigarettes the Grounders habitually smoked, the air was relatively clear. His sister was nowhere to be seen. All the Arkers were hunched over the same table, looking morose. He tried to think of something rousing to say to them, because there was no way in hell he was telling them it was all over, but for the first time inspirational language had abandoned him as well.

Jasper was the first to spot him. "Hey, Bellamy," he called glumly. "I'm guessing you heard about Fox?"

Bellamy slid into a seat and folded his hands on the table. "Yeah, that's why I'm--wait, what about Fox?"

Uneasy glances were exchanged and a few more shots thrown back in resignation. "Fox," Harper said slowly. "Her name finally came up on the donor list. She's getting a bone marrow transplant. Tomorrow."

 _Of all the--_ "For _what?_ "

"For sickle cell anemia. How did you not know that? It's why she bruises so easily. And why she gets short of breath?"

Bellamy gripped the edge of the table so hard he felt it creak in his hands. "Fuck, I thought all that was Lexa's fault."

"Couldn't've helped," Monty muttered into his glass.

Bellamy grabbed the tumbler from his hand and unloaded it down his own throat. The taste nearly made him gag. "What _is_  that?"

"Mountain Dew and Jagermeister," Monty said evenly. "Or 'Monty Dew,' as I call it. It's not helping much tonight."

The cloying taste and accompanying sugar rush was making Bellamy's head spin. It deadened the remains of his optimism. Losing one more cast member wasn't really a problem when half his leads were gone. Benedick, Beatrice, Claudio, Hero, what did it matter now?

"Where's Octavia?" he asked, trying to keep his tone casual.

Jasper looked around, his brow furrowed. "I thought she was here earlier. Guess she left."

Monroe--the most astute of the group--noticed his slack expression. "What is it, Bellamy? What's the matter?"

He cleared his throat once, then again. "The Grounders are gone," he said finally, forcing himself to meet her gaze. "They cut a deal with Mt. Weather and ran. So there's that."

He looked around the table, grimly taking in the shocked faces, telling himself he owed them that much. He would accept their disappointment in him. He could own his own failure.

Everyone was quiet for a long time, and then John Murphy began to chuckle into his beer. The sound wouldn't have been less out of place at a funeral. Harper gave him a boggled look.

"What is _wrong_ with you?"

Murphy looked around, that shit-eating grin spreading beneath a foamy mustache as he set his glass back on the table. "Oh, c'mon. Not for nothing, but this is kind of funny."

"Fuck off, Murphy."

"No, seriously. The Grounders hate us because we took their theater and now, look! They're giving it back to us. Just like that."

Bellamy curled his lip at him. "'How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping,'" he recited scathingly.

"Did you just make 'joy' a verb? And I thought Clarke was the grammar Nazi."

"Jesus, dude, did you even know what play you were in?"

"I should have seen this coming," Jasper said in a despondent tone, draining his glass and dragging Bellamy's attention away from the urge to punch some very specific people. Maya laid her hand on his arm.

"No one could have known this was going to happen."

He shook her off with an injured expression. "No, but I did! I knew the second I figured out the acronym that it was gonna be a bummer."

"The acronym--?" Miller started skeptically.

"He means _MAAN_ ," Monty supplied, shaking his head. " _Much Ado About Nothing._ "

"Maaaaaaan," Jasper sighed, his chin propped on his fist. "I can't believe I'm unemployed again. Not that I'm making less money, but still."

"We've given up on the show? Does this mean I don't get to play Claudio, then?" a voice behind him demanded. Bellamy whirled in his seat-- _goddamn that girl_ \--to see Octavia grinning down at him. Her hair was still in Grounder braids and her eyes still rimmed with black liner, but she was _there_ , she hadn't gone.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded hoarsely.

"In the bathroom, Bell, jeez. You want a play-by-play?"

"You didn't leave?"

She sobered at his expression. "No, of course not. Indra wanted us to, but..."

Gratitude was suddenly spiked with indignation. "You knew that Lexa was going to walk out on us? She told you about this?"

Ever wry and patient, Octavia spread her hands and looked around. "'I came hither to tell you,'" she quoted dryly, "'and, circumstances  shortened, for she has been too long a talking of--'" She raised her eyebrows and shrugged widely for effect. "'The lady is disloyal.'" 

"Boo! Speak English!" Jasper called drunkenly, his hands cupped around his mouth.

Octavia leaned against Bellamy's chair and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Lincoln and I signed on for this play," she said quietly, just to him. "We're staying, no matter what happens." He squeezed her hand in his, something jagged caught in his throat.

Jasper leaned in. "So...what happens?"

"The show is done, guys," Bellamy said with a shake of his head. 

"So you're saying we should devote ourselves to getting blasted tonight," Miller nodded.

Harper gave him a sardonic look. "Which is different from other nights how?"

Bellamy stood up, waving them away as they all signaled the bartender. "Do what you want. I have to get back to Clarke. We've gotta go figure out how to fold this production with even a small amount of dignity."

"Unless Clarke thinks of something," Miller noted idly, leaning his chair back on two legs and taking a swig of beer.

"Yeah," Bellamy said grimly, unable to smother that last spark of hope at the thought of her in her office, making calls, her expression tough and determined. "Unless Clarke thinks of something..."

 

But Clarke wasn't in her office when he got back to the Ark, and she certainly wasn't making determined phone calls. When he found her, she was sitting on the edge of the stage in the auditorium, taking pulls out of a bottle of Jameson and singing "The Parting Glass" in a soft, husky voice. 

"Oh, all the sweethearts that e'er I've had,"-- _pull_ \--"I'm sorry for their going away."-- _pull_ \--"And all the comrades--"

"You're singing that wrong," he interrupted as he jogged down the aisle. His traitorous heart was pounding in his chest. For a few panicked moments searching her office, he'd thought she had left. "It's 'all the sweethearts that e'er I had are sorry for my going away.'"

She raised her brows politely at him. "I beg to differ."

Her hair was free of its usual braids, and she had taken the time to drop the red velvet curtains across the stage behind her. The metaphorical melodrama of that was a bad sign. 

He reached the edge of the stage and stopped at her knees, suddenly deeply unsure if he wanted to pull himself up next to her. This was starting to feel uncomfortably familiar. 

She must have had the same realization, because she snorted before taking another slug of whiskey. "All we're missing is the rain on the roof," she murmured. He didn't smile. He couldn't imagine doing this all over again, letting her walk away with the feeling of her mouth still burning against his jaw. 

"I couldn't come up with a miracle," she announced, her voice tinged with wry self-deprecation. "But I found the Jameson." She held out the bottle, and he accepted it but didn't bring it to his lips. She took in the way he was gripping the neck, the way it dangled at his side, and her lips flexed tiredly. "I'm sorry I've let you down, Bellamy. But you can get angry with me or you can get drunk with me. Up to you."

"We're not going to do this again," he said hoarsely. He hated the way she did this, the way she acted tough and unreachable while inside she was all scorched wainscoting and broken furniture. "You're not going to get hammered here and then take off for who knows where for who knows how long. It's bullshit."

The vehemence in his voice obviously surprised her, but she held the scraps of her tough smile in place. "We're all 'taking off,' Bellamy. The Ark is going under. This is the end."

Well, she had him there. For a moment they stared at each other, and the theater around them seemed to echo with the silence. He didn't know what made him say it next. All he knew was that time and time again he had pretended not to care to protect both their stupid pride, when all he really wanted to do was make sure she stayed on as his co-leader, his sole sounding board, and--goddammit--his best friend.

"Don't go to med school."

Her eyebrows lifted so high it raised her hairline. "What?"

He stepped between her open legs, the silky bunch of her skirt shifting against the edge of the stage as she widened her knees. He hadn't said it last year, and he should have. "Don't go. Just don't."

"Bellamy," she said in a very reasonable tone, the one that always got on his nerves. "The Ark is going under."

"So?"

He could see she hadn't expected that. "I have to go to med school," she said finally, as though stating the obvious.

"Why?"

She opened and closed her mouth a few times. "...Because."

"Uh-huh." She was looking at him like he was crazy, but her cheeks were also faintly pink. He made up his mind. "Well, I guess there's only one way to settle this, then." 

"And what's that?" She looked uncertain, her eyes on his as though trying to decipher his intention, predict his next move. Keeping the whiskey bottle swinging from one hand, he curled the other into a fist on the stage next to her knee.

"If you win, you go to med school. If I win, you don't."

The alert tension drained from her face in an instant, replaced with a tight-lipped _Really?_ look. He didn't back down. 

"Bellamy, I can't stay here. What else am I supposed to do? We don't have a theater anymore."

He didn't budge. "We'll figure something out. Together." 

After a moment of stillness, she sighed and rolled her eyes, then settled her fist next to his. He could tell that she was only doing this because she always won anyway, but Bellamy had been keeping a small, comforting piece of knowledge tucked away for a special occasion. He knew he always threw Rock, and he knew he always lost. But that meant that she always threw Paper, because she knew him better than he did.

Usually.

 _Thump, thump, thump,_ their fists pounded the stage boards, but his eyes never left hers. It wasn't until she broke away that he looked down at their stilled hands. They had both thrown Scissors.  He raised his gaze back to her face, took in the wide eyes and parted lips, and felt something warm spread slowly through his chest. 

She had been trying to lose.

"Bellamy..."

He waited for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. Her mouth opened and closed a few times.

"Tie-breaker?" he offered finally, letting his hand form back into a fist.

She looked down at her knees and began slowly kicking her heels against the side of the stage. "No," she said quietly, pulling her hands back into her lap and twisting them together. "No, not yet."

She was flushed all the way down her neck now, and he couldn't stop the smile that was curling along his mouth. Neither of them had ever been in a position of not having something to say. 

"Okay, then." Dropping his fist from the stage, he took a swig of whiskey and passed her the bottle before hoisting himself up next to her. "Let's get drunk." 

Something in the air eased between them now that they weren't facing each other directly. They stared out into the empty seats instead, silent for a long moment.

Clarke rolled the whiskey bottle between her palms, letting her feet dangle once more. "We should probably toast this stupid play," she said finally. "We put so much work into it."

Bellamy squinted up into the lights, trying not to remember so many things. "I've monologued too much in this space," he sighed. "I don't think I have anything left to say."

"Good thing Jasper texted me the toast they used at the bar." She held the bottle up in one hand and read off her phone: "'To this mediocre Shakespearean comedy: It really did end up being much ado about nothing.'"

Bellamy nodded as he mulled it over. "That I will toast to."

 

Half an hour later they were both flat on their backs, staring up at the catwalks and swinging their legs over the side of the stage. Bellamy had taken off his leather jacket and stuffed it under his head, while Clarke rested on the run-off from the curtain. The bottle stood between them, and periodically one or the other would prop themselves up on an elbow to take a swig before settling back down.

"Hey, when you bailed on us last year, did you try to get work with the Grounders?" Bellamy asked idly, feeling warmer and more relaxed than he had any right to after this particular day. "Because you could probably guilt them into giving both of us a job now in their new digs."

He watched her ignore the question with evasive aplomb. "I never _bailed_  on you," she corrected primly, lacing her hands over her stomach and eyeing the ceiling. "I spent an extensive amount of time in meetings with Dante Wallace negotiating everyone's future. It's not like I ever really left the theater."

He see-sawed his hand over his chest. "Potato, potahto."

"Nobody actually says potahto, which really just proves my point if you think about it." She turned her head to the side to give him a mock glare. "And I still haven't decided if I'm staying. That round was a tie, remember?"

"Fair enough." He shoved up onto his elbows, reaching for the whiskey. "Wish I could've seen this show just once," he murmured with a shake of his head. He took a pull. "Jasper alone was worth the price of admission."

"Indra kissing Lincoln," Clarke smiled at the ceiling.

"The look on Octavia's face whenever Indra kissed Lincoln." He laid back down, the lights overhead growing soupy as the whiskey tingled in his throat. "It was a good show," he said roughly. "God damn it."

She sighed. "It was. But maybe this is for the best."

He had to laugh at her stubborn practicality. "Yeah. I won't have to coach Lexa through that stupid love scene anymore." 

"We'll never have to cold call donors again," she added wistfully.

"Monty and Jasper can no longer hotbox the Green Room."

"Raven will never play 'Black Dog' at midnight through the sound system and wake up all the neighbors."

"That one's a shame."

She chuckled at that, but it was a weak, wet sound, and it startled him into turning his head. Her lips were pressed tightly together as she stared straight up, but he could see the tracks where several tears had already slid down the side of her head and dampened her hair. 

He propped himself back up to look at her. "Clarke."

She wiped the tears briskly away with the heel of her hand. "I don't even know why," she said with a shaky laugh. He could think of several good reasons, with "alcohol" being a frontrunner just behind "betrayal."

"Hey," he rasped instead, feeling something in him wrench as her lips twisted and she looked away. He reached across what had once seemed like an insurmountable gap and brushed the loose waves of hair away from her face. "Hey."

"I'm sorry," she muttered in a wavering voice. Rolling onto her side to face him, she brought one arm up and tucked it under her head. He mirrored her without even thinking about it, and suddenly her nose was inches from his. There was nowhere to look that wasn't her--her pale skin, her tired eyes, the cascade of her golden hair. 

"Clarke..."

She averted her gaze, reaching between them for the whiskey but not picking it up. She held the neck of the bottle loosely in her palm, watching the base as she rolled it against the stage boards. "I just thought I would have found a way to fix this by now and instead..." She blinked hard. "I failed everyone." 

"This isn't your fault," he said carefully. This was a side of her he had never seen, and he was afraid that any sudden gesture would spook her into fleeing. He closed his hand around hers and the bottle wobbled to a stop. "And it's not your responsibility." 

Her gaze jerked up and skewered him on the spot, but she didn't pull away. "Isn't it?" Her eyes were searching his for answers, for reassurance, for something else, something more. 

His thumb was tracing circles against the back of her hand, and how the hell had that happened? "You didn't fail," he said, because he had to say something. "Even if this play never goes on..." He swallowed the words, and then reluctantly dredged them back up, this time coated in gravel. "You brought my sister back. You gave me my _family_ back, Clarke. That isn't nothing."

She looked surprised, and moved. Was she closer to him than she'd been before? Their foreheads were nearly touching. Even beneath the tang of alcohol, he could smell the oil paints that stained her fingers and the tips of her hair. "And it brought us here," she said, a tentative lilt in her voice making it sound almost like a question.

 _Be careful, Bellamy, you fucking moron._ She was here with him now, but for how much longer? And did it even count, if he was her second choice every time?

"I think we're done with this," he grunted. Tugging the bottle free from her grasp, he set it further upstage, over their heads. 

"You don't have to police me, Bellamy, I'm not that drunk," Clarke said steadily, her blue gaze staying on his face. He felt like she could see all the way to the bottom of him, and it made him gruff.

"Yeah, well, I learned my lesson the last time you got your heart broken."

He thought it would be enough to snap them out of the moment, to return some of her fire and some of his sanity. She studied him seriously instead, then scooted in an inch closer and laid her palm against his cheek. His hand clamped automatically around her wrist and they stayed like that for an instant, a startled tableau.

"I know I got stupid after Finn left," she said finally, her voice low and patient. "But Lexa wasn't..." Her eyes explored his face in a way that made his chest rise painfully. "She wasn't what I really wanted."

He held her wrist tightly, feeling the fragile bones move against each other, and he couldn't figure out if it was more dangerous to hold onto her or to let her go.

"So what _do_  you want, Clarke?" he asked softly.

His gaze within hers, he felt a sudden stillness inside where there used to be only constant roiling. A waiting stillness like a deer frozen, listening to its own body not moving.

When she leaned forward to press her lips tremulously to his, it was simultaneously what he'd been hoping for and what he'd been afraid of. He could feel her pulse pounding in her wrist as she pulled away again, searching his face for a response. 

If this was a bad decision, he didn't want to think about it. In one smooth motion he pulled her back to him, drawing the warm curve of her body into his and settling his mouth over hers like a reclamation. She made a little noise as he did so, like desire, like relief. He had gone too many years without doing this.

Dropping her wrist, he ran his hand up her arm to her shoulder, her neck, her hair. Her fingers were already twisted in his curls, holding him in place as she kissed him fiercely back.

Without any interfering cast members to shake him back to his senses, there was really no stopping him. With a possessive growl, he rolled her onto her back and leaned over her, his weight on his forearms, his mouth never leaving hers. Her hand was already working its way beneath his waistband, shifting, stroking, squeezing...

 _Fuck_ . He pulled away before she could make him come right there in her palm. He should have known Clarke Griffin would be one to get right in the driver's seat. Well, to hell with that and her saucy little smile.

Keeping a firmer grip on his self-control, he slipped off the stage and stepped between Clarke's legs, which were dangling over the edge right at chest height, how perfect. She startled upright onto one elbow, her hair a mess and her lips a little swollen. Without breaking eye contact he lifted her leg to his shoulder and very gently kissed the inside of her knee. She jerked, just a little, and her panicked blue gaze quickly traveled the length and depth of the auditorium.

"Bellamy," she said in a hushed tone, the silence of the theater nearly swallowing her words. "Look where we are."

He did not. Instead, he slid both hands slowly up her thighs, under her skirt, his thumbs brushing over what he could only imagine were very sensible cotton panties. He traced his fingertips over her hipbones, loving the way she jumped at his touch, feeling himself grow painfully hard at the thought of her spread out on the stage before him. Hooking his fingers in the waistband of her underwear, he paused and looked back up at her.

"Do you want me to stop?"

A crooked smile crept up her mouth, and she shook her head slowly. "No."

Lifting her hips, he rolled her panties smoothly down her legs and let them drop to the floor. A quick glance confirmed that they were beige and cotton. _And soaking fucking wet._

With a little groan that he could not control, Bellamy pushed her knees apart, bending down to drag his lips up the inside of her thigh. She trembled against his mouth, so he took his time, hiking her skirt up inch by inch as he went, glancing up occasionally to lock eyes with her. 

"I just meant," Clarke said in a somewhat strangled voice. "What if someone walks in?"

"We could charge them a lot more than the tickets for _Much Ado_ ," he replied, unperturbed, bringing his fingertips up under her skirt to trace along her naked flesh. He heard a muffled thump as her arm collapsed beneath her and she fell flat on her back, her hips rising against his hand. 

His wandering tongue had reached the junction of her thigh. He let one finger glide inside of her and she gasped and bucked, her groping hands caught in the stage curtains behind her head in fistfuls of red velvet. He groaned as he withdrew slowly, feeling his erection straining painfully against the fabric of his pants.

"Christ, Clarke, you're so wet."

"Bellamy, for god's sake." She was nearly panting now. "Get inside me already." 

"I'll get to it," he growled, pushing her skirt the rest of the way up over her hips and exposing her to the heat of the can lights above. "But first I am going to make you fucking scream."

When he buried his tongue between her legs, though, it wasn't a scream that filled the theater but his own name, barely a whimper on her lips, over and over as he tasted her in clear violation of every stricture he'd ever held dear, a chant that filled the theater, that christened it.

They had no audience that night, and it was Bellamy's best performance. Their world reduced to a halo of light, they shed their clothing quickly, casting it outside their circle into the echoing hollows and the shivering dark. He took her on his knees, her legs wrapped around his waist, arching her spine so he could lean forward and fill his mouth with the globe of her breast, feel her nipple stiffen between his teeth and against his tongue. To keep them both from falling over she reached up and gripped the stage curtain overhead, using it as leverage to move up and down along the length of him, riding him slowly and achingly until he gritted his teeth and pulsed inside her, until he couldn't stand the way she teased him with her hair in her face and her lips parted in an almost-smile, and he grabbed her by both hips and pumped inside of her until her eyes met his like she was drowning and he knew she was coming by the way she dropped the curtain to clutch the back of his neck and kiss him, and he didn't stop, couldn't stop until she _did_  scream--a short, breathless cry--and he gasped as he came inside her, both of them pitching over from the momentum, sprawling across the stage, sweaty and spent, the roar of blood in their ears like thunderous applause from the far reaches of the empty house.

 

When Bellamy opened his eyes the next morning, he couldn't quite figure out what had woken him. It wasn't as though sunlight could actually make it into the windowless bowels of the Dungeon, and while his phone had an alarm perpetually set for 9:15 a.m., he had lost track of all his worldly possessions many hours prior.

So it had to be something else.

Clarke stirred in his arms, and he thought he might have landed upon the culprit when he found at least part of himself coming stiffly to attention as her naked skin moved against his. 

"When did we end up in the Green Room?" she asked muzzily, lifting her blond head from the crook of his shoulder to squint up at him.

He had to laugh, kissing her forehead before settling her back against his chest. "Well, it was after you did that mic check on me in the Booth but before we thought about the consequences of fucking on this disgusting old couch."

It was a deeply uncomfortable realization that his bare ass on the scratchy woolen fabric had been bringing to his attention for some minutes now, although in his sex-drunk haze the night before it hadn't seemed so bad.

"Didn't Jasper and Monty try their first shots on this couch?" Clarke asked, and Bellamy could hear the wrinkle in her nose.

"And then threw them back up on this couch, if I recall."

"Raven set it on fire that one time." 

"Didn't Murphy try to piss on it to put it out?"

"I don't want to bring up Lincoln and your sister, but isn't this where...?"

"Aaand, we're getting up." She was laughing as he gathered her up, protesting as he swung them both into a sitting position.

"I was kidding!"

"Too late. Up. Move it, Princess."

And just like that, he heard what had awakened him earlier. It was coming from above them, and it was getting closer. They froze, wide-eyed and straining to hear.

Voices.

" _Shit,_ " Clarke hissed, scrambling to her feet. He watched her search wildly for their clothing, knowing full well that most of it was scattered around the stage somewhere. The voices were coming toward them, two people deep in conversation. 

Obviously giving it up as a bad job, Clarke abandoned her search, grabbing Bellamy by the wrist and pulling him, naked, into the empty coat closet. Unused hangers jangled around his head, and he shoved them to the side before yanking the door shut.

"Maybe next time we should pick one of the dressing rooms to fall into a sex coma," she whispered in the near-perfect dark. "At least there are clothes in there."

"Maybe they'll pass by," Bellamy mouthed back, leaning down so his lips brushed her hair. They heard the Green Room door open and Clarke stiffened at Jasper's voice.

"--but the bra was dangling from the catwalks, which takes some precision. And with the broken bottle and the alcohol all over the stage, I dunno."

"You think they were trying to trash the place?" Maya asked.

"I think Clarke was trying to burn it to the ground, but Bellamy showed up and talked her into throwing some shit around instead. It's like they have no respect for the fact that I live here on occasion."

"Not last night..."

Bellamy could almost hear the blush in Jasper's voice. "Well...no, not last night."

He heard the closed-off breath of Clarke trying not to laugh and bit back his own grin. He was suddenly aware that he was still standing naked in a dark, confined space with her. His mouth found her bare shoulder and began to plant kisses along it. She inhaled raggedly, her hands seeking out his hips and settling there. The memory of how she felt against him was enough to dismiss caution, and he shuffled her back into the wall as quietly as he could, capturing her mouth in the darkness and feeling her heartbeat jump against his chest.

How could he have banned romantic fraternization in this theater when every room and corner seemed designed for just such a purpose?

He wasn't aware that the conversation outside of the closet was still happening until Clarke tapped him urgently on the shoulder and he broke away, breathing hard.

"--really going to go back and work for them?" Jasper was saying. "I know it's not your fault, but they kind of put us out of business."

"I don't want to," Maya murmured. "But we can't just leave."

"But why not? Your dad can find another job, right? One that's not so shitty?"

"It's not that easy, Jasper. Here, sit down." There was the squeak of springs as they sat on the couch that Bellamy and Clarke had just vacated. Bellamy kept his lips pressed against her temple, her spiking pulse there keeping time as they listened. "We don't get paid in actual wages. We get, I don't know, company vouchers. We live in Mt. Weather housing, we shop at their store. What we get, what we have...it's worthless everywhere else. We'd be starting over."

"So you'd be broke? _I'm_ broke! It's not the worst thing in the wor...oh my god, is this couch _warm?_ I'm sorry, but we need to have this conversation somewhere else. This is the couch where Miller was showing off that Grounder move he learned and busted Monroe's lip wide open, so really we should get some disinfe..." The conversation deadened as the door closed behind them and they drifted down the hall.

Bellamy let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and broke away from Clarke to nudge the closet open. The coast was clear. He turned back to see a slice of light cutting across her face, illuminating a growing smile.

"What?"

"29 CFR 531.34," she grinned, her eyes far away.

"What? Clarke, are you having a stroke?" 

Her focus snapped back to him and she shook her head, brushing past him out of the closet, apparently no longer aware of her nudity as she began to pace around the room. "No, 29 CFR 531.34. It's the Code of Federal Regulations."

"You've _memorized_  the Code of Federal Regulations?"

"Bellamy, don't you get it?" Her eyes were shining with a brilliant, dangerous glint as she met his gaze. "I know how we're going to save the Ark."


	7. The Show Must Go On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You don't need a summary; y'all know what happens next in this story. Obviously Clarke shoots an old man in the chest and then murders everyone who works for Mt. Weather with radiation poisoning.
> 
> Um, spoilers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing,  
> I am yours for the walk, and especially when I walk away."  
> \- Hero, Act II, Scene i

Clarke stood outside of Bellamy's office and hesitated, her hand on the doorknob. Inside, she could hear him talking on the phone, his voice measured and even. That was a good sign. If something had gone wrong, he'd be shouting by now.

It had been two days nearly to the minute since she'd woken up next to him, and she still wasn't quite able to look him in the eye. It had been one thing to give into that desire when everything was falling apart, when the theater was disbanding, when they might not see each other again. But now there was a chance to save the Ark, and suddenly staying was a real possibility, not just a stupid game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

 _But is that a good idea?_ As always, her more practical thoughts sounded like her mother, perhaps because her mother had been giving her unsolicited advice for years.  _Never go for theater types, Clarke._ A sigh in her voice. Always a sigh. _It's all flash and drama and excitement at first, but it's too volatile to last. Someone always leaves._

_You went for a theater type, and that worked out._

_Your father is gone, Clarke. He's maybe not the best example now._

She lingered in the hallway, trying to forget all those little conversations, trying to ignore how they had proven true over and over again, first with Finn and then with Lexa.

 _Bellamy asked you to stay, though,_  a little voice reminded her, and this one didn't sound like her mother at all. Maybe it had been an empty invitation, since at the time there was nowhere to stay and nothing to stay for, but he had asked her. Now that she _could_ stay, was it worth it to give up med school? Her mother's money and support and dreams? 

"You can come in now, Clarke," Bellamy called from inside. She started, not having realized he was off the phone. 

"How'd you know I was out there?" she asked as she pushed the door open, shooting a small smile in the direction of his chin, unable to even flit her eyes up to his.

He sounded amused. "You've got loud thoughts, Princess." She tried not to let any of them show too obviously on her face as he leaned back in his chair, bringing his hands up behind his head. She stood a few paces away, looking around the tiny room. It occurred to her suddenly that this was the first time they'd been alone since they woke up together in the green room. In the whirlwind that followed, both of them were mostly on their phones, with Monty on the computer and Maya going through paperwork on the couch. There'd barely been room to move, much less time to talk to each other. 

Now she stood in front of him, and the emptiness seethed around her.

"Where'd Monty and Maya go?" 

Bellamy shrugged, apparently unconcerned or unaware of the tension in the air. "They've helped out enough in the last..." he made a show of checking his watch, "...forty-eight hours. I told them to go home." In the silence that ensued, she felt that this whole situation could still go in two radically different directions. 

"I finally got the names of people we could send this information to," she supplied finally. "If...if we have enough on Mt. Weather to pull it off."

Bellamy blew out a breath, and it spiked her anxiety another few notches. 

"Spit it out, Bellamy, what's the news."

"Well, it's good and bad. The good news is, your little code violation idea got us a lot of good stuff. Maya gave me access to her accounts and it's..." He see-sawed his hand. "Sorta illegal. Mt. Weather pays hundreds of employees scrip and then charges them triple the market price for company food and housing. It's basically indentured servitude, but scrip itself isn't illegal, so it's not exactly incriminating."

"So that's the bad news?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. It's just not enough. If we report them on this, it'll take months to get an investigation going. By then, freezing their bids and transactions may come too late. They might own the theater already, and we'll have a tough time getting it back."

A familiar numbness was creeping over her. "So that's it. There's nothing we can do."

"Hold on, Clarke, you're underestimating the people willing to help us," he said, and that slow, lazy grin of his sparked new feeling in her limbs. "Maya's not just an employee there; she's an administrative assistant. Once we started talking about these bullshit company vouchers, she gave me passwords for all sorts of stuff. I had Monty do a little digging and he found some emails from corporate heads about overseas spending and some really sketchy investments, and that's our jackpot."

Her heart was the only part of her moving; the rest of her was stillness. "Jackpot? Like, enough to stop them from buying us out?"

"Jackpot like it's enough to shut them _down_."

She had to remind herself to breathe. It couldn't be. Not a shot in the dark against a Goliath like this. "For what?"

"You name it, they've done it. Insider trading, dummy corporations, sweatshops, medical experiments you wouldn't believe. The way they talk in their group conversations, you'd think none of them had ever heard of leaked emails. And we've got records of all of it now. If you have someone we can send it to..." 

She nodded, numbly. Hours, days of calling and networking, and it came down to one email address in her phone. She handed it to him silently. Turning his chair back to his desk, he woke up the ancient computer there and typed it in. 

"We send this file, and that's it. Game over."

In the pale, flickering light of the screen, she could read the exhaustion in his face. But the pride was still there--pride in his people, in their dedication, in his own determination. Pride in her.

"I just thought we could buy a little more time. I didn't realize..." She felt nearly dizzy with the turnaround. "We could do this. We could pull this off."  

"Thanks to you."

Returning that tired smile of his would be dangerous. She busied herself leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen. This way she didn't have his gaze on her, but it did mean she could feel the heat from his body, so close to her own. "I can't believe sending one email can solve this for us." She watched his hand hesitate toward the mouse and then withdraw. "What are you waiting for?"

He turned a little in his seat to eye her over his shoulder. "Your approval."

It surprised her. "Me? Why?"

He shrugged. "This went way bigger than any of us thought it would, Clarke. We're not talking about just firing the CEOs or anything here. This will topple the company all the way down to the ground."

"Well, what's the alternative?"

"We let the theater fold."

 _Never._  The cursor was hovering over the Send button. She reached over Bellamy's shoulder and rested her hand on the mouse, but she couldn't seem to click. She found that she was mad. This should be an easy choice. Mt. Weather was lying to their stockholders and exploiting their workers. She wasn't doing anything but exposing them to justice and the legal consequences of their actions. 

She wavered. The Ark was such a small, frivolous idea. Mt. Weather was a machine with teeth and purpose.

She and Bellamy were nearly cheek-to-cheek and she could feel him glancing sideways at her, waiting for her to make up her mind, to act decisively, as she always had. His dark hair brushed against her ear and she wanted to lean her whole weight into him.

"This is the right thing to do," she whispered, still unmoving, still unable to make herself do it.

Bellamy's hand settled on top of hers, large and warm. Under the combined weight of their fingers the mouse clicked, and the message jumped into the ether.

She hadn't noticed how tense he was until the email was sent, and then he collapsed back in his chair, all his breath gone in one long exhalation. She was still behind him, her hand trapped beneath his on the mouse, and now his curly head was resting against her shoulder. A twisting warmth coiled in her belly. 

"So what now?" he asked, a soft rumble in his voice. It was such a loaded question. She made the mistake of turning her chin toward him just as he tipped his head back to look at her, and she was immediately caught in the brambles of his dark, dismantling gaze. If she leaned in even a little, their lips would meet. Memories of his mouth hot on her skin flashed like lightning across her nerves.

Her mother's voice was a tin whistle in her ear. _Focus, Clarke._

"We don't have to decide anything right now," she said at last, gently sliding her hand free of his and taking a prudent step backwards. "But we're in a better position to keep the theater. We could postpone the opening night a few weeks, get some new bodies to fill the cast. I can drum up some people."

He spun in his chair, studying her shrewdly. He wore a new, guarded expression, but his eyes were patient. "Okay," he said finally, with a softness she wasn't used to from him. "I can wait as long as you need."

It was hard to ignore the way his gaze lingered meaningfully on her mouth as he said it. She forced briskness back into her voice. "Then let's go get our people."

 

They had assembled nearly everyone by the time Bellamy got the call. Clarke was pacing the length of the stage while the cast and crew filed in, taking seats in the various rows. Everyone knew it was serious, but there had been no clamoring questions or demands. Possibly because Jasper hadn't arrived yet.

"Is this premature?" Clarke murmured to Bellamy as she passed by the stage steps where he was sitting. "It's been less than four hours. We don't know if it actually worked, right? No one confirmed?"

He ran his hand through his hair. "Just...run over the possibilities with them. Let them know we're--hold on." Digging his cell phone out of his pocket, he checked the name and a smirk came to his lips. "Yeah, this Bellam--hey, Cage. Well, whaddya know." He grinned up at her as he climbed to his feet, and the glint in his beautiful brown eyes bolstered her. They had done it. Them and Monty and Maya. She wanted to kiss him. She was afraid of just how much she wanted that.

He turned away just as Octavia and Lincoln came through the side door, Octavia charging up the stairs, obviously on the warpath.  Clarke watched with some amusement as Lincoln retreated to the back of the house.

"Bell!"

"Yeah, hold on Cage. O, I'm on the phone."

"What the hell is going on? Are we back on?"

He pointed at the front row. "Go sit. Clarke will explain. Yeah, sorry Cage, I know this is a difficult time for you, but what does this have to do with your dad? It gave him a _heart attack?_  That's fuckin' rough, but I don't see how that's our fault. We didn't invest millions of investors' dollars into over-inflated housing schemes."

Blocking the other ear with his finger, Bellamy descended the steps and headed into the Dungeon, stopping only to turn around and give Clarke a raised look that she could read as effortlessly as a thumbs-up. 

_Fucking confirmed._

The success of it filled her like a balloon, and she forgot that she was waiting on the rest of the cast. Before Octavia had even draped herself across multiple seats, Clarke was stepping forward into the light of the stage.

"Mt. Weather is done," she said baldly. "We shut them down."

Octavia jerked her head up to stare at Clarke with deep suspicion. A jealous protective sense for her brother, or something else? "Who's 'we'?" she demanded.

From his place lying down in the aisle, Monty raised his hand straight in the air. "I helped."

Miller was looking around from face to face. "I'm confused. You're saying we're not going under?"

"Not today," Clarke assured him, unable to help a slow smile as she watched happy recognition dawn on most of the cast. 

"We get to keep our home!" Harper whooped.

"We can do Mackers next year!"

"I won't have to look for another job!"

"I can afford laundry detergent!"

"We can go torch the Grounders' new digs!" Murphy crowed.

That caused enough of an unsettled silence for Clarke to make herself heard again. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, here," she cautioned. "We might be able to scrape this production together, but I don't know yet. We'd have to find some people to fill the empty roles. If we can't, we might be on hiatus until next season. I'll take this week to see what we can manage, and next week we'll--"

"No."

She hadn't heard Jasper enter the theater. He was just there, in the aisle, with Maya by his side looking ragged and exhausted. She had a wad of Jasper's sleeve in her fist, as though she'd been dragged in with him while trying to hold him back. The energy in the room flattened like a stepped-on line.

"Jasper? What--"

"I said no. No, I will not be in this play. Not with you." He took a step toward Clarke, oblivious to the rest of the cast turning and staring at him. "What have you done?" he hissed in a tremulous whisper that carried through the house nonetheless. 

She gave him the most serious look she could muster, feeling her heart beginning to beat in the pit of her stomach. "I stopped a company from exploiting its workers and saved this theater."

"Clarke..." His lip trembled. "You--you lost Maya her _job_. You lost _hundreds_ of people their jobs--people who are just regular parents and husbands and wives trying to make a living and support their families!"

"Wait, no, Jasper." She held up her hands. "We're the good guys here. Mt. Weather was the one paying them scrip and forcing inflated prices on them for food and housing."

"And now they won't have anything, Clarke, did you think about that? Maya's dad's going to get evicted--they're going to have to _move!_ "

Maya was tugging on his sleeve. "Jasper, Jasper, it's fine. We all knew who we were working for. None of us is innocent." She paused, frowning. "Is? Are? None of us _are_ innocent?"

"I think it's 'is'," said Clarke automatically. "As in 'not one of us is', right?"

"Grammar is not the issue here!" Jasper shouted. He had the wild look of a panicking deer, with the whites of his eyes showing a little too much. "Clarke, how could you do this?"

Clarke looked around at the grim and troubled faces that were now all turning to her for an explanation. "I didn't have a choice," she protested. "They were going to shut us down. You were all going to lose your jobs. This place is our home--this cast is our family."

"And what about Maya's family?" Jasper asked tremblingly. In the front row, Monroe crossed her arms over her chest, a frown creasing her brow.

Clarke took a step back. "I'm just trying to protect this place. This is about survival."

"No, this is _supposed_  to be about art!"

She might have come up with a response to that if Octavia hadn't spoken up suddenly, a dry anger in her voice. "You know, I was looking at the website, Clarke, and I know what else you've been doing," she said darkly. "You were ready to charge our loyal client base for seats that were already sold."

"No, that was a--it wasn't--"

But there was already a low tide of muttering washing through the cast. Clarke sputtered to a stop, feeling numbness creep into her skin. Octavia looked frankly predatory as she swung her legs off the side of the seat and stood up. "Clarke, whatever you're doing, it's too far. It's not enough just to win."

Something raw was burning in the back of her throat. "What do you want from me? I am doing the best that I can."

"Well, it's not good enough."

"Hey. The hell's going on in here?" Everyone turned to watch Bellamy come up from the Dungeon--everyone except Octavia and Clarke, who continued to glare at each other unblinkingly. Bellamy strode between the stage and the house, looking back and forth from one to the other, taking in Clarke's flared nostrils and Octavia's balled fists. Clearly deciding not to address either woman out of fear of what they might say, he finally spun around and peered into the back.

"Lincoln, you wanna tell me what the fuck is happening right now?"

"Don't bother, Lincoln," Clarke said in a hard, clipped voice, not breaking away from Octavia's gaze. "I was just going."

And like that she was movement, hurrying down the stage steps and up the aisle, swinging her bag onto her shoulder, leaving the stage manager binder exactly where it was on the seat.

"Just going?" Bellamy repeated blankly, starting after her. "Just going where? Clarke?"

But she was already through the swinging doors and into the lobby, ignoring the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. _Ungrateful, unfair, idiotic..._ Something in her stomach twisted as she realized she couldn't even hold onto her anger. It kept reflecting back as self-loathing, because they were right. Jasper, Octavia, all of them. 

She burst out the front doors into blinding sunlight and had to stop to shield her eyes. She had forgotten it was still the middle of the day. As she blinked her way back to vision, she heard the door open behind her.

"Getting real tired of chasing you around this theater, Clarke," Bellamy growled. She didn't look at him. How could she have been happy about this for even a moment? Nothing was a victory in this place.

"Well, you won't have to anymore. I'm leaving." 

"Like hell. Did Octavia say something to you?"

She shook her head. "It wasn't just her. No one wants me in there after what I did. _I_ don't want me in there after what I did."

She started down the front steps but stopped short when he grabbed her by the elbow and whirled her around. "What _we_  did," he corrected. In the daylight she could count every freckle on his cheeks. "I'll talk to them. I'll make them get it."

He was pissed as hell at her--she could see it in the muscle jumping in his jaw. But his eyes were so big and earnest, and she couldn't not remember the way he'd looked at her just the other night, hopeful and jaded and possessive all at the same time. Breathing carefully through her nose, she reassembled her composure, shook him off, and continued down the front steps. 

"You're not leaving."

"I am, actually. You don't want me associated with this theater right now, Bellamy."

"I don't give a _shit_ about this theater right now, Clarke."

It was maybe the only thing he could have said to make her stop walking. And breathing. She looked up at him, gripping the metal handrail tightly. It was warm and solid in her hand. "What did you say?"

"I don't care about any of this, I--" He stopped and exhaled slowly. "Will you please just come inside?"

She was so close to saying yes. And then she remembered the look on Jasper's face. The way Octavia shook her head in disgust. "I can't," she murmured, turning away. "Not after what I've done. I can't."

She made it to the bottom of the steps before his voice cut into her. "I don't know why I'm surprised."

She turned, more at his tone than anything else, still lingering on the handrail. "What?"

He stood on the top step, his expression tight, his hands clenched into fists. _Rock, Rock, Rock,_ she thought numbly. "I should've known you'd run. You've just been waiting for the opportunity."

The injustice of it filled her throat like bile. "I am not _running_ \--"

"Oh, come on, Clarke," he scoffed. "I could see this coming a mile away. After Finn, after Lexa--"

"This isn't anything like that!" she protested.

"You're damn right, it's not!" he shouted, banging his fist on the rail. It jumped and trembled against her palm. "Because this time it's _me,_ Clarke. It's you and me. I don't know what you're afraid of, but _I'm_ not going anywhere." He stared at her, the muscle in his jaw working furiously. When he spoke again, it was in a carefully lowered tone. "Christ, Clarke, do you think I don't know you? Why do you think I never--" He swallowed hard, as though something were stuck in his throat. "Never mind."

Was there a word for wanting to do everything for someone but still letting them down? She tried to will herself to move. There were only ten steps between her and Bellamy, and another dozen to get back into the only place that had ever felt like home.

"I love--this theater," she stammered. "But I can't. I'm sorry."

She turned and hurried down the block.

 _Coward_ , she thought as she fled. _The word is coward._

**********************

Bellamy watched Clarke's golden hair disappear around the corner and something within him hardened to the point of brittleness and then crumbled into dust. Wordlessly, he turned on his heel and strode back inside.

He could hear the arguing from the lobby, but it subsided the moment he opened the door to the house. All heads turned to look at him, to note that he was alone as he walked down the aisle. Raven had come out of the booth and was standing in front of Octavia's seat, her arms folded and her mouth curled like she had just closed it around a sharp word. Wick was leaning against the wall next to Lincoln in the back.

Jasper and Maya were gone.

Instead of mounting the stage, Bellamy approached his sister and nudged her with his foot.

"Where's Jasper?"

"I dunno," she said sullenly, slouched in her seat.

"Well, he didn't come out the front."

"He's in the Dungeon," Raven supplied impatiently.

"Go get him, Octavia."

She was up in a flash, ready to have a go. "Why me? I agree with him--this is bullshit!"

There was no temper left in him for her to provoke. "You're going to go do it because we need him for this play," he said in measured tones. "We're opening on Saturday, and you're going to play Claudio." He could see the glint in her eyes at that, the way it tore her allegiances to even consider it. He sighed. "I'm not asking you to give up your scruples, O. But Mt. Weather is gone and what we did to get us here doesn't matter anymore."

"The show must go on!" came a call from the back.

"Shut the _fuck_ up, Murphy."

Octavia glared at him for a long moment of tense silence, but he already knew she was going to do it. She'd picked her side when the Grounders left, and _she_ at least was staying with him. When she finally whirled and stalked down to the Dungeon, he moved right on to the next thing. Clarke's seat was still weighted down with her color-tabbed binder. _NOT YOUR FUCKING SECRETARY,_ it reminded him in screaming red letters. Hardly glancing at it, he picked it up and slung it into Miller's arms, rocking him back with the weight of it.

"Miller, you're up. Let's start the dress. Everyone in costumes, people."

"What about the missing roles?" Harper asked in a tentative voice.

Pointedly, he dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. "Yes, I'll hold," he replied when the secretary asked. He covered the phone with his hand. "Move." The cast exchanged glances. "Now!"

They moved.

Raven had obviously spent too much time biting her tongue, because instead of going back to the booth she stood next to him, tapping her good foot. He eyed her, annoyed.

"What."

"Who's going to go talk to Clarke?"

"The fuck do I care?" He started up the aisle, the phone still glued to his ear. She tagged behind, tenacious.

"You sent Octavia to talk to Jasper."

"That's because I actually need both of them."

"Oh, you are so full of shit."

He paused, listening to the muzak blaring its tinny melody over and over. Raven stood in front of him, one eyebrow raised. 

"Clarke can do whatever the hell she wants," he growled finally. "I'm tired of waiting for her to make up her mind about this place."

The eyebrow only rose higher. "Maybe she needs some reassurance that this place actually wants her. You didn't hear what they were saying to her today. It was rough. She's lost a lot of people, Bellamy."

He was immutable. There was nothing left to move. "So did you, and you didn't up and leave. In fact, Clarke tried to kick you out and you still wouldn't go." 

Her gaze drifted toward the back and softened just slightly as she watched Wick sneak a flask out of his back pocket and pass it to Lincoln, who took a swig without a change in expression. "I had someone willing to fight for me," she said with the smallest smile. 

He opened his mouth, a spark of fury still left in him-- _Do you realize how hard I've been fighting for her?--_ and at that moment the muzak cut out, replaced with a deep, steady voice in his ear.

"Bellamy?"

"Kane." He inhaled, exhaled. He couldn't think about Clarke anymore. He had work to do. "I'm sitting on a half-cast show that's going to be playing to a full house in less than three days. I need you to round up every actor you have who isn't busy Saturday."

Once he'd hung up, Jasper was back, looking red-eyed but no longer furious. Monty was watching his best friend with uneasy concern, and Raven still hadn't budged. All in all, it was not the ideal atmosphere for a romantic comedy.

What would Clarke have done? Circled them up and started the counting game? Done another round of Monty vs. Guildenstern? Ordered pastries from the cafe next door, City of Latte? He ground his teeth and shook his head, trying to dislodge her from his thoughts. Clarke was gone, and that was that. He'd have to just do things his own way. Alone.

"Okay, everyone," he snapped, dismissing Raven with a wave of his hand. "Feelings hour is over. Let's get back to work."


	8. Opening Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reconciliation/denoument should have been shorter, but these bastards fought me every step of the way. Clarke and Bellamy, get your shit together.
> 
> I have half an idea for an epilogue, so that may come at some point too. In the meantime, this is the finale!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Was't not to this end  
> That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?"  
> \- Don Pedro, Act I, Scene i

****8:33 A.M.** **

_Bzzt bzzt bzzt._

_Bzzt bzzt bzzt._  

_Bzzt bzzt bzzt._

Pausing mid-bite with her cereal halfway to her lips, Clarke watched her phone quiver to a stop on the counter as it redirected Raven's call to voicemail. The third in three days. Opening night was in ten-and-a-half hours.

But she wasn't thinking about that.

Her phone buzzed a final time. Huh. Raven had actually left a message this time. Her spoon sticking out of the side of her mouth, Clarke touched a button, letting it play out on speakerphone. 

"Hey, Clarke, me again. I guess you're sleeping, or ignoring me, or like working four new jobs, I don't know. Anyway, this is the last time I'm gonna call because, whatever, I don't want to bug you. But Jesus, could you just come back already? Nowish? Because Bellamy is...shit, I don't know if there's a stronger word than 'insufferable' to describe him when you're not around. He has lost his goddamn mind, Clarke. You'd think we were putting on a play by the Russians, he's taking it so seriously. He made Miller cry today. _Miller._ We need you back here."

"I was encouraged to leave, y'know," Clarke muttered as she washed out her bowl in the sink. There was a long, static silence from the phone, and when Raven spoke again, it was lower and softer.

"I know you're not just going to come back, because you're stupid. But Jasper and Octavia are...well, okay, they're not sorry, but they are wrong. And I think they know that. And the rest of us want you to come back. I'm not going to drive to your house or anything, but I'm saying it. Just this once."

Something about hearing it from Raven made her throat burn. She gripped the edge of the sink until her forearms shook and tried to imagine a universe where Bellamy Blake would still welcome her back after all this. She had made her choice. She had regretted it immediately, but she couldn't waffle now. She had to stick with it.

"Anyway, that was my pitch," Raven sighed. "First show's tonight at seven, so you should come see it at least. I know we're sold out, but I'll just kick someone out of a seat for you, like I know you would've wanted."

"Asshole," she muttered at the smirk in Raven's voice. The message ended with a beep, and she was left to the silence of her kitchen.

Seeing the show tonight. God, it would be like watching Christmas dinner from outside in the cold. It would break her heart. And the whole time she was watching it, she would know that Bellamy was somewhere in the darkness, his eyes on the stage and a pencil cracking between his teeth. And when Jasper tried a new delivery of an old line and it really landed, she would hear his laugh, just the barest exhalation of mirth from some far corner of the house.

She blinked away the vision. It hadn't even happened and it was already twisting in her chest. Maybe she should go back to bed.

She tried to ignore the little glimmers of hope the message gave her. Did Bellamy know Raven was inviting her back? If he did and he didn't stop it, if he tacitly _condoned_  it...

 _Stop it,_ Clarke ordered herself firmly. If things between her and Bellamy weren't completely broken, he would have knocked in her front door by now and yelled at her for half an hour. She almost would have preferred that. She deserved it. And yelling at her would be better than this...nothing.

_He asked you not to go and you walked away. He doesn't owe you anything. So stop expecting it._

She left the room with the phone still sitting, silent and patient, on the edge of the counter.

 

****12:13 p.m.** **

"Let's take a break."

Bellamy rubbed his bloodshot eyes and staggered down the stage steps, collapsing into the first seat in the audience he could find. He hadn't had a good night's sleep in days, and the hours were pile-driving into him, one after another. Monroe followed him down, looking glum and deeply uncomfortable in her lacy dress.

"So that...wasn't good," he sighed as she hovered by his seat.

"Sorry, Bellamy. I know I keep messing up. You know if you want, I'm happy to just keep playing Margaret."

He pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand and waved her away with the other. "No. If we don't have you, we don't have anyone. Just step it up, okay?"

He didn't have to look at her to see her wounded feelings at that, but he didn't particularly care. This patchwork show would run, yes, but that didn't mean it would be particularly good.

"Yo, Kane wants to talk to you in the back," came Octavia's voice, and Bellamy looked up in time to see Monroe slip gratefully away. Octavia slid into the seat next to him, her expression grim.

"Isn't it nice that we can have these little chats every now and then, Bell?"

"Be helpful or be elsewhere, O."

"Good grief, you're so touchy when she's gone."

He ignored that, folding his hands over his chest and tipping his head back against the seat. Five minutes of sleep without a reminder of her, that's all he needed. Five minutes without the thought of her set and determined expression. The way her eyes lit up from the glow of her 1000-watt mind. The weighty feel of her breasts cupped in his palms.

He opened his eyes very quickly before that train of thought pulled into the station. Octavia was still staring him down. 

"Go get Clarke already."

He settled his shoulders into the seat. "No. Are we done now?"

"I don't like you like this, Bellamy. You're mean, but you're not passionate. We need you at your best tonight. So. Go. Get. Clarke."

" _You're_ the one who drove her away. I thought you were pissed at her."

"I am! She's the Leslie Knope of this theater. She's crazy and controlling and she has no sense of scope." She took a careful breath and settled her tone. "But if you can accept the guy I'm in love with, I can put up with Clarke."

He jerked up nearly out of his seat. "I am _not_ \--"

"There's that fire," she smirked, and he twisted his mouth shut over the rest of the denial, fighting down a hard breath and the flare of his nostrils. His sister could be so infuriatingly smug sometimes.

"I didn't make her choose," he said finally, looking away. "You told me not to, so I didn't. She left anyway. Like I knew she would."

" _God_ , Bellamy. You're my brother and I love you, but you and Clarke are so stupid." She kicked up off her chair, leaving it swinging on its hinges. "That was my advice three weeks ago, which is what, like, a thousand years in theater life. Lexa's gone, you know Clarke wants to come back, and you know you want her back."

Just because it pissed him off didn't mean it was wrong. "So what?"

"So make yourself a choice already."

 

****3:00 p.m.** **

_Knock knock knock._

In her bedroom, Clarke slowly closed her laptop and listened, her heart beginning to beat very quickly.

_Knock knock knock._

Three raps on her front door. Throwing her legs over the side of the bed, she headed down the hallway, twisting her hair over her shoulder.

"Raven?" she called tentatively. "I thought you said you weren't coming over." She opened the front door, half a smile on her lips. "I didn't really think you'd--"

She stopped mid-sentence, her mouth falling open. It wasn't Raven. Of course it wasn't Raven.

"Mom?"

Abigail Griffin was busily shoving her sunglasses into her bag, but she glanced up long enough to give Clarke a swift, piercing look. "Expecting someone else?"

 _Not Bellamy,_  she thought with a rush of secret shame. _Nope, not him._

"I thought you were working today is all."

"I'm on call." Abby looked her up and down in a way that made Clarke feel suddenly exposed. "Marcus told me that he's been at the Ark for three days now and that you haven't shown up once." A thin, wry smile started on her lips. "I thought you might be seriously hurt or something, so I decided to drop by."

At the word _hurt_ \--true and yet somehow so inadequate--tears welled up and everything blurred. 

"Mom--"

Abby's expression changed from amused to concerned in an instant as Clarke began to leak shamefully from both eyes. "Oh, Clarke. What is it?" 

Ten minutes later they were both on the living room couch with a strong cup of chamomile tea, and Clarke was already reassembling her emotional armor. Her heart was in drought, but even around her mother she could only manage the briefest of rain showers.  

Abby sat on the opposite end of the sofa with her legs tucked under her, eyeing Clarke over the rim of her mug. "Whatever happened, Clarke, I'm sure it's not that bad. No matter what they did to you--"

"It wasn't them." Clarke stared into her tea. "It was me."

Abby considered her for a long moment before setting her cup down on the coffee table. "Well. That's not the end of the world either. They're your friends. They'll take you back."

She remembered the fury in Bellamy's expression and, worse, the hurt lying beneath it. He had put himself out there, he had _begged_ her to come back, and she had walked away. It twisted her guts like a wrung-out sponge.

"It doesn't matter," she muttered. "I'm going to med school. I was going to have to leave anyway."

The silence that followed lasted so long that the tea in front of her started to waver again. She heard her mother move across the couch and then there was a warm hand on her wrist and she closed her eyes.

"Clarke, I know I haven't always been around," Abby said in a low whisper. "And I know that I've said some disparaging things about the theater since your father died."

_Volatile. All flash. No substance. Someone always leaves._

"Well, you were right."

"No, Clarke. I was just...sad. About your father. Even when he was alive, it was hard. He didn't make much money, and he was on the road a lot, and he was gone most nights, and--"

"I know. Mom, you've told me all this. It's why--" _I'm making different choices. I'm being an adult. I'm getting a real career._

"Just let me finish." Abby sighed. "I know what I said. But I fell in love with your dad in the theater. I haven't been able to stay away from it, even though he's gone. Why do you think I'm on the board for the Ark? Why do you think I ended up with Marcus? I hate the theater sometimes, Clarke, but I love it, too." She ducked her chin, her warm brown eyes seeking out Clarke's gaze. "And so do you."

"He'll never take me back." She'd meant to say _they,_  but it slipped out before she could stop it.

Abby's smile was shrewd. She gave Clarke's arm a comforting squeeze. "Well," she said quietly. "Have you tried asking?"

 

****6:47 p.m.** **

_Cr-e-e-a-a-a-k._

Clarke paused with the door open a crack, her heart thumping madly. Peeking inside the theater, she could see the blackness of the hall leading to the stage and the movement of the actors waiting nervously in the wings. She knew she was letting in the remains of the outdoor light and that someone was bound to look over and spot her, so before she could change her mind she slipped inside and let the door click shut.

Her heart was in her throat and she had yet to take a breath, but at least her key still worked on the side doors. At least Bellamy hadn't changed the locks. At least she didn't have to walk in through the lobby and purchase a ticket to her own show and face the inevitable questions and whispers.

Unfortunately, coming in through the side door meant navigating past all the actors or else enduring their questions and whispers as well. She couldn't stand the thought of that. She just wanted to find Bellamy. Before the show started, so she could tell him. But not _too_  long before the show started, so he couldn't completely lay into her.

Carefully skirting the people in the wing, she twitched aside the stage leg and peeked into the house, scanning the back of the theater to no avail. Too many people were milling about in the audience, and the control booth was dark. If he was up there, she couldn't tell. After another sweep, she still hadn't spotted him, but she did see Indra and Nyko lurking in the back. It gave her a pause, and the worry of sabotage wriggled in her mind. 

 _No,_ she realized after a moment, with a touch of surprised sadness. _They just want to see the play._

Ducking back down below the stage, she headed furtively into the Dungeon, casting a nervous glance over her shoulder as she went.

The narrow, fluorescent halls were blessedly abandoned, and she made it to Bellamy's office without seeing anyone. His lights were off and the room was empty. Damn her luck anyhow. She was about to give it up as a bad job when she spotted the headset lying on his desk. 

_This is it, Clarke. Here's your chance._

Taking a deep breath, she picked it up and jammed it on her head, switching it on before she could talk herself out of it. She could immediately hear him breathing, slow and thoughtful, right in her ear. Standing alone in the dark, it was like having him there by her side. 

"You were right," she said breathlessly. "I was a coward." She could feel his surprise in the silence on the other end. She went on in a rush, grateful to not have him looking at her. "It wasn't the best thing for the company or the cast or us. I got scared of who I am and what I've done and I ran. I'm sorry. You're not like Lexa, and you're not like Finn." She swallowed hard, her fingers tight around the little mic. "You're the only person who's never betrayed my trust. You've never hurt me. I feel like I've spent every day of my life fighting you, but you always fought fair. I want to come back. I want to stay here." Her heart was hammering, but she was in too deep to back out now. "With you."

The static silence was loud in her ears. Listening to the dead air go through rigor mortis, she fought the urge to tear off the headset and throw it across the room. Then he cleared his throat and her heart jumped.

"Uh, Clarke?"

A trapdoor unhinged itself in her stomach. " _Miller?_ "

"Yeah. I'm, um, subbing for you, remember? Assistant stage manager?"

She tried very hard to die on the spot. "Where the hell is Bellamy?"

"He's playing Benedick tonight, opposite Monroe. Should be hilarious." There was a mortifying pause. "That was a nice speech, Clarke."

"I think we should include it in the play," Raven's cheerful voice interjected in her other ear. Clarke closed her eyes as all of the feeling in her face drained down into a squirming heap in her belly.

"I think I managed to record some of it, if that helps," Wick added unhelpfully. "In case you need to play it back for Bellamy."

"Shut up, Wick," Raven chided, a note of sympathy in her voice now, as though perhaps Clarke's humiliation had become a tangible thing saturating the line. "Forgot tech was on the radio, huh?" she asked Clarke kindly.

"I didn't--I wasn't thi--" A thought stopped her in the middle of her floundering. "Wait. If Bellamy's not directing, who is?"

"Hello, Clarke." Kane's voice, soft and politely embarrassed, sounded in her ear.

"Oh...Marcus, great. That's just...so great." Clarke's fingers had gone numb around the mic. She should have known that Bellamy would handle all of this so well without her. "Well...now that you all know...that...I should really just go."

"Clarke--" Raven began.

"No. No, you guys don't need me here and I have to..." Unable to finish, Clarke ripped the headset off and flung it onto the desk. It was clear to her now that she shouldn't have come back. Now the trick was going to be getting out without encountering anyone else.

She headed back into the hall with the same focused speed as before. Unfortunately, she made it only a few steps before Monroe came barreling out of the girls' dressing room, her arms piled high with a bundle of clothing. She banged into Clarke and they staggered apart, both trying to keep their balance.

"Sorry!" Clarke winced. "I was just--"

"Hey!" Monroe peered over the layers of chiffon and silk, her expression changing from annoyance to relief in an instant. "Oh, holy crap, Clarke, thank god! Where the hell have you been?"

Clarke blinked. "What? No, I--"

"Here, take this." With a sigh, she dumped the fabric into Clarke's arms and took off down the hall at top speed. "And hurry up, or he'll kill you! And me!"

"What? Who?" Clarke called fruitlessly after her, a length of lace trailing from her arms to the floor. The stage door slammed. Silence reigned.

Clarke glanced down at the messy pile in her arms. It was Beatrice's dress, and a piece of paper was pinned to the top. Someone had scrawled a note there.

_Jesus, woman, get dressed already! Remember: Don't mutter cues or other people's lines under your breath, don't look at the control booth, and don't deliver your lines upstage._

_Your first entrance is DSR._

_-B_

_P.S. Right now, Princess! Move your ass!_

Beyond the Dungeon she could hear the sound of people finding their seats and the rumble of scenery being rolled into place, and the internal voice she had that kept the time was screaming at her to hustle already, but for a moment Clarke just stood there under the fluorescent lights, running her thumb over the scrap of paper. Here it was, a second chance, laid out in front of her, angry and grudging but there. Not forgiveness exactly, but it was something. 

Miller's voice squawked from the headset in Bellamy's office. "Five minute warning! This is it--asses and elbows, people!"

She flew.

 

She barely made it, dressed and ready, to the stage before her cue, so no one had time to exclaim or badger her or give her reason to shush them because _the audience can you hear you, idiots_ , so when she stepped out from behind the curtain into the hot, blinding lights, it was into a different world. She didn't have to worry about what to say to people because she was Beatrice now, and Beatrice didn't give a shit about anything.

She smirked her way through the first scene, trying to keep pace with all the changes. Harper had been bumped to Don Pedro's part, leaving Sinclair to play the old man, Leonato. A better fit for the role, even if Sinclair wasn't particularly old. And Octavia _was_ Claudio, all quiet confidence and her best bravado and proud masculinity. But the way her eyes lit up when she first spotted Lincoln across the stage put a hole in Clarke's chest.

And then in the next instant her breath was gone entirely, and not just because her green dress had a corset that laced way too tight up the front (damn Fox's more boyish frame). Bellamy was striding onto the stage in boots and breeches and rolled-up sleeves, all tousle-haired callow youth, and she found she couldn't look anywhere else.

He was talking to Leonato. He was talking to Don Pedro. His eyes didn't even flicker in her direction, although she was watching him like a hawk. His white shirt was unlaced in a vee down his chest and she could see the muscles in his thighs outlined by the tight fabric of his pants. She suddenly found that she didn't want to suffer through the length of this play just to get the chance to say what she needed to say. She had to say sorry, somehow, while playing the least apologetic character in the world.

Finally, when she could take no more, she called across the stage, "'I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick. Nobody marks you.'" The words came out smoothly, saucy and unaffected, as though her whole world didn't hinge on this moment.

He turned slowly, his dark eyes glinting. "'What, my dear Lady Disdain!'" he grinned in a savage tone. "'Are you yet living?'"

Their eyes locked and her chest rose. Lord, he was handsome. Why did he have to be handsome too? She tried to read the thoughts in his gaze, but there was too much Benedick in there, and it was suddenly hard to tell what was real and what was fiction.

_Bellamy..._

His mouth flattened disapprovingly and he cut his gaze at her. _Not now, Clarke. For Chrissake, look where we are._

There was a sharp pain in her lungs and the lights were too bright. What had she expected? For him to break character and kiss her in the middle of the scene? He had given her the opportunity to come back to the Ark, but that didn't mean things could go back to the way they were.

Someone in the audience coughed, and she realized she had fallen silent for a white-knuckled moment.

"'Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?'" she stumbled out, her cheeks burning. "'Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.'"

"'Then is courtesy a turncoat,'" he announced, completely unaffected. He strode toward her, sweeping his arm wide to indicate the audience, the the theater, the globe. "'But it is certain I am loved of all ladies.'" He gave a little skip to reach her and _boop_ ed her on the nose. "'Only you excepted.'" The audience laughed and she nearly jumped at the sound. He put on a serious expression. "'And I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.'"

It was just a line in the play, but the casual dismissal in his voice hurt anyway. To have him flirting with her, touching her, but to not be able to reach him beneath the mask of the character was the worst punishment she could image.

"'A dear happiness to women,'" she said briskly to cover up the way her knees were trembling. "'They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humor for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.'"

There was the briefest flash at that, just a moment where he was Bellamy instead of Benedick and his eyes were full of stillness, but she found she couldn't read him--not a little, not at all.

Clarke left the scene muddled and nearly shaking, and then there was nothing to do but stand in the wings and watch Benedick and Claudio sit side-by-side onstage and discuss Beatrice and Hero. Octavia glanced sidelong at Bellamy before taking a deep breath and blurting out, "'Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?'"

It gave Bellamy the opportunity to stare into the wings, look Lincoln in the eye, and grin, "'Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise. Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.'"

Standing next to Lincoln, Clarke looked up at the large man with his folded arms and perpetual serious stare and watched him slowly shake his head and mouth, _[You racist little shit.]_

On stage, Octavia nudged Bellamy with her knee before he could begin to laugh, pitching her voice lower and more inquisitive, her expression serious and urgent. "'Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her.'"

Bellamy shot her a curious frown, as though suddenly understanding the weight of the question. "'Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?'" he asked hoarsely.

She raised her head slowly to the wings and locked eyes with Lincoln. A grin insinuated itself around her mouth. "Can the world buy such a jewel?" she mused in a low, husky voice.

"'Yea, and a case to put it into!'" Bellamy shouted at her, leaping to his feet in consternation, but he couldn't draw Octavia's gaze from the wings. And when Clarke looked up at Lincoln again it was with something like astonishment, for the grim, stoic man she had always known was wearing the barest shadow of smile.

By the time they hit the intermission Clarke was a rubber band ball of nerves, and she barely felt the hands that touched her shoulders or heard the bewildered "Welcome back?" greetings that got called her way. People were involved in too many frantic costume changes to grill her, and she was too busy searching for Bellamy.

She found him leaning against the prop table, scribbling notes on a ream of paper. She had to swallow the urge to tell him not to touch the props or the table. This was still his show. She wasn't sure it was hers anymore.

No more beating around the bush. She had to do this now. "Bellamy?" she called, approaching him directly, forcing him to lift his head and look at her. Even off the stage, his eyes were neutral, inscrutable, and she felt herself falter again. "Can we talk for a second?"

He nodded and set the pen down, the paper still in his hand. "Yeah," he said soberly. "I was just about to come find you."

Feeling awkward and too exposed to the actors streaming around them, she inched closer to the stage curtains, although they were hardly something solid to lean against. He followed her, ignoring everyone else who walked by.

For a moment they stood facing each other. Waiting for the hammer to come down was making it hard for Clarke to breathe. "Bellamy, listen--"

"You're gesturing with your upstage hand whenever you talk to Hero," Bellamy interrupted. "It's making you turn so that you're hard to hear, so stop doing that. Your Beatrice has been way tentative, so show me a little more fire, especially in the Benedick scenes." He was running his finger down the paper, checking off notes as though completely oblivious to the way her mouth was hanging open. "And Christ, you've stepped out of your light five times just in the first three acts, so I'm not going to be responsible for what Raven does to you after the show. You're also consistently a beat behind on--" 

" _Bellamy!_ "

He looked up. "What?"

"What are you doing?"

He gave her a completely blank stare. "Giving you notes."

It was like a bizarre parallel universe where he was a civil human being and she hated it more than anything he'd ever said to her. "I thought you were pissed at me!"

An incredulous smile curled his mouth, and he finally looked her in the eye. "Right now I'm giving notes to my stage manager on her performance in a play I'm starring in rather than directing. Sinclair forgot half of his lines in the first scene because he's been playing the role for three days, the only thing I can count on are the lights, and I'm like 80% sure my sister just proposed to Lincoln in the middle of the show." He gave it a beat, watching her gape at him, and then shook his head in disbelief. "Of _course_ I'm pissed at you, Clarke, are you _kidding_ me? You abandoned us _three days_  before we opened. You walked away from me when I asked you not to. I don't have anything else to say to you right now except find your fucking light."

It was true and she deserved it, but somehow it hurt anyway. He didn't sound pissed. He wasn't yelling. In his mouth the words just sounded as though he were stating the obvious. It was not a Bellamy Blake she recognized.

 _Maybe I really did screw this up,_ she thought numbly. Bellamy was still giving her a patiently impatient look.

She licked her lips, which had gone terribly dry. She wished to god he had just been on the headset. She found it hard to find the words now, standing in front of him. "If that's how you feel," she managed finally, "Then why the dress? Why the note?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, and his next words were grudging. "Because you came back. Like I...fuck." He ran his hand through his hair, half-turning away from her, but there was only curtain to turn into. It gave her the briefest spark of hope.

"Like you what?" she pressed.

His voice was full of thistles. "Like I hoped you would, okay? No matter how fucked up you are, you've always put this theater first. I can at least count on you for that." She watched his eyes harden back to expressionless stone. "So I'm giving you notes, and you're going to play Beatrice better than anyone else could, and we'll make it through this fucking shitshow because we're professionals, and that's the end of it, okay?" 

And before she could respond he had turned away, stalking across the stage in pursuit of Miller, who was wearing her headset and holding her binder.

Clarke watched Bellamy jabbing and waving at the set and something settled inside her. He had just made something very clear. Moving to where Monty was standing near the prop table, she picked up the ream of paper and the pen Bellamy had discarded. 

"Monty," she said briskly. "Go find me the biggest quill we have."

*********************

At least method acting wasn't difficult anymore.

The act after the intermission couldn't have been better if Bellamy had planned it. Clarke's Beatrice certainly had more fire, but the anger and hurt she expressed at the false accusations against Hero felt too real for a simplistic comedy. This play had finally discovered its heart, after breaking nearly everyone else's.

All that was required of Bellamy in Act IV was to look vaguely troubled and out of his depth, and that was something he was managing rather adroitly. Every time he looked at Clarke he felt the most infuriating jumble of things he couldn't name, and it made him want to step outside the script entirely and kiss her or shake her or walk off the stage and never come back.

"'What shall become of this?'" Sinclair demanded, bringing Bellamy abruptly back to his role. "'What will this do?'"

No better question asked. Bellamy raised his head and nearly met Clarke's gaze across the stage. He'd been working hard not to look directly at her the entire play, but she kept aggressively trying to catch his eye. He looked away.

"'Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf, change slander to remorse; that is some good,'" Jaha droned, and Bellamy found himself glad he'd cast the man as Friar Francis. It was a rambling, tedious role, but no one played it with more pomposity. "'But not for that dream I on this strange course, but on this travail look for greater birth.'"

This speech went on forever. Bellamy could hear the audience losing interest. There was movement across the stage and he glanced up in astonishment to see Clarke very primly and purposely pull a big-ass feather quill from between her breasts, which were already pushed so far together it was a wonder she could get two fingers between them.

The audience began to chuckle as she shook a piece of paper from her flowing sleeve and started to scribble across the page, pausing every now and then to glance up and give Bellamy an arch look. Jaha didn't seem to notice, blithely continuing his monologue about Hero's worsening condition.

When she was finished, Clarke folded up the page into a paper airplane and chucked it right at him. It nosed lightly through the air, wavering just past Jaha's head, and hit Bellamy in the chest before falling into the basket of his open hands. No one was looking at Jaha now. Bellamy could feel all eyes on him but mostly hers, forthright and insistent as she'd always been.

He looked down at the crumpled airplane in his hand. Across the wingspan she'd written NO, IT'S          NOT OKAY.

He unfolded the paper carefully, his jaw clenched tightly around a number of emotions he'd been resolutely putting off for the night. Inside was her precise handwriting.

_I didn't come back here for this show. I don't care if I get my job back and I don't care if the theater goes under. I came back to be with you. I don't want to go to med school. I don't want to be anywhere without you. I love you, you idiot._

He closed his fist around the page and took a deep breath, one and then another. There was a ringing silence in his ears. He opened his hand again and smoothed the crumpled paper. Rereading the words-- the difficult, impossible words--settled his jumbled insides all at once, like a knot tugged cleanly free. When he raised his head Clarke's eyes were the only part of his world, and they were wet.

He swallowed down a stone. _Clarke..._

Her lips twisted. _I know it's too late and I know I screwed up, but I'm sorry, Bellamy, I just want you to--_

He made it across the stage to her in three long strides. She didn't startle away but watched him with a ruined mouth, her face tilted up toward his. His palm slid up her jaw, and he thumbed away a tear as it rolled down her cheek.

It was at that moment that he realized they were alone on the stage, that he had missed a whole chunk of lines after Jaha's speech, and that the other actors had already followed the exeunt cue. He could feel the audience's breathless attention against his back, but he didn't care.

"'Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?'" he murmured, unwilling to let her go, unwilling to look anywhere else.

"'Yea, and I will weep a while longer,'" she swore fervently, her eyes darting back and forth between his.

He shook his head. "'I will not desire that.'"

Her gaze was still plaintive as another tear followed the first's path down her cheek. "'You have no reason; I do it freely.'"

He wiped the second tear away, the pad of his thumb now smeared beige from her makeup. He wanted to take her hand and leave the stage right then and there, but there were hundreds of people watching, so instead he rolled his eyes to the ceiling, blew out a breath, and exhaled, "I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?" 

She rose like a cork under his hand at that, her eyes wide, possibly because he had just skipped approximately ten lines of dialogue in order to say his piece. A half-smile was climbing her face and there was something so satisfying in that that he pulled her closer and jumped another page.

"'I protest I love thee.'"

Her eyes flashed and she shook her head, only half a beat behind him. "'Why, then, God forgive me!'"

"'What offense, sweet Beatrice?'"

Her eyes tracked his. "'You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you.'"

His hand tightened briefly against her jaw. "'And do it with all thy heart,'" he rasped, wanting to hear it out loud, wanting to see the truth of it in her eyes.

She met his gaze unblinkingly, raising her hand to hold his palm against her cheek. "I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest."

His world went briefly still, and for a moment he floated like a dust mote in the golden column of the spotlight. Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead to hers and murmured, "'Come, bid me do any thing for thee.'"

Her eyebrows lifted as she looked up to meet his gaze, her expression wicked.

"'Kill Claudio.'"

His laugh was real as he glanced into the wings at a frowning Octavia. "'Ha! Not for the wide world.'"

Clarke disengaged from his grasp smoothly, her expression serenely unaffected. "'You kill me to deny it. Farewell.'"

And just like that they were back in the groove of it, their lines barbed and caustic as they'd even been, their bickering intimate and authentic. The scene ended on a grim and serious note, and Bellamy had a hard time holding back his grin until he had exited the stage, even as he was striding into a baffled group of actors.

"You skipped half the scene!" Harper hissed, throwing her hands up in the air.

"And you forgot to mention Hero a couple of times," Octavia groused, glaring at the opposite wing where Clarke was standing with her arms folded.

"Kinda hot, though," Monroe teased as she passed by.

"Quiet in the wings!" Miller mouthed at the lot of them with a violent downstroke of his hand. Everyone shut the hell up, and Clarke threw him a thumbs-up from across the stage. 

The rest of the act passed smoothly until they reached Jasper's accusation scene, when Dogberry was supposed to lay out the villains' sinister plot. And then suddenly Bellamy wasn't the only one playing fast and loose with the blocking.

"'Hearken after their offense, my lord,'" ordered Claudio.

"'Officers, what offense have these men done?'" Don Pedro demanded.

Instead of addressing them, Jasper turned and searched the audience, finding Indra and Nyko all the way in the back and thrusting a finger in their direction.

"Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves."

In the silence that followed, as Harper and Octavia gaped at him and hunted for their next lines, Jasper cut a look into the wings and stared right at Clarke in a startling moment of acknowledgment. She nodded at him, and he tipped his chin just slightly, and then the moment was gone. 

And so it went, scene after scene. Bellamy had forgotten how long this play was until he was in it, spending half the act staring into the opposite wing, watching Clarke as she studied the actors, her expression intent and focused. Why the hell hadn't she shown up during a dress rehearsal to tell him she loved him? At least then he could have told everyone to fuck off right then and there.

And then--thank Christ--they were nearing the end, heading into the scene that had set all of this in motion, the scene with the non-declaration of love that had never quite worked, that had always seemed wrong, aggressive, misogynistic. But he couldn't think about it because he was too busy standing on stage trying to pretend he wasn't in love with the infuriating woman in front of him, the woman who kept pretending she didn't love him back.

"'Then, you do not love me?'" Bellamy pressed, as though just making sure. _Because hijacking my play kinda says otherwise._ He couldn't stop looking at her, and as such, every scene had become two separate conversations.

Clarke shrugged. "'No, truly, but in friendly recompense.'" _Right, because you didn't reserve this dress just for me._

He gave an audible snort at that. _If I had known it was going to distract me this whole time, I might not've._

_If you can get actually get aroused with pants that tight, I'll be impressed._

They stood several paces from each other with their arms folded belligerently over their chests as the cast around them exchanged grins and nudges. 

"'Come, cousin,'" Monroe urged finally with a roll of her eyes, "'I am _sure_ you love the gentleman.'" 

Octavia held aloft a scribbled note, a malicious amusement in her eyes. "'And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her, for here's a paper written in his hand, a halting sonnet of his own pure brain, fashion'd to Beatrice.'" 

"'And here's another,'" added Lincoln. "'Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket, containing her affection unto Benedick.'"

Bellamy accepted the pages from both of them and immediately kicked at his sister's ankle when he saw what they were. Octavia danced away, grinning. The two pages were covered in writing--his and Clarke's. The first was the note he'd left for her with the dress. The second was the smoothed-out paper airplane she'd tossed at him.

"'A miracle!'" he admitted dryly. "'Here's our own hands against our hearts.'"  

Clarke was walking forward to take a look. He offered her the pages, but she tossed them over her shoulder immediately, causing a ripple of laughter in the audience. He barely noticed. She had taken a step into his space and laid a hand against his chest. He could feel his own heartbeat drumming steadily against her palm. 

He looked her up and down.  _I am going to tear that dress off you the second I get you alone._

A flush crept up her neck, but she didn't look away. Her Beatrice had grown frankly brazen.

"'Come, I will have thee,'" he said. His gaze traveled down to the tops of her breasts and his next line was somewhat unconvincing as he groaned, "'But, by this light, I take thee for pity.'"

"'I would not deny you,'" she announced, tilting his chin back up with two fingers. He closed his hand around her forearm and pulled her closer still. "'But, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion.'" The audience laughed again, as she had yielded so far against his chest that she had nearly lost her balance. His eyes not leaving hers, he raised her arm to his lips and traced soft kisses along the inside of her wrist. She shuddered, just slightly. "'And partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.'"

She was too breathless to properly project her last line, but he wasn't listening anyway. Dropping her wrist, he slid his hand up beneath her hair, cupping the back of her neck. "'Peace,'" he growled. "'I'll stop your m--'"

But she had already gripped his collar with both hands and pulled him to her, covering the end of his line with her mouth. He held her face in his hands and kissed her back, so long and so hard that sporadic laughter and applause broke out in the audience.

When they finally released each other, the taste of her lips still burning on his, Bellamy didn't even know what day it was, much less what play he was in. The rest of his lines were a hazy blur. But then it was over and he was finally able to dance Clarke off the stage and into the wings where they broke apart in the darkness, both of them panting and shining with sweat as the curtain dropped.

Outside, in the audience, applause was rolling through the crowd. All around them the cast was whooping and shoving in a roiling mass of bodies with their arms around each other's shoulders. Between Bellamy and Clarke, though, there was only silence, and the sound of rain.

Before either of them could speak, Monty was stepping between them, shaking them both by the shoulders as echoes of "Encore!" reverberated around the stage.

"C'mon, you guys--curtain call!"

A chain of actors wound its way past them and out onto the stage as the curtain rose. Someone grabbed Bellamy's hand and yanked him in, and he let himself get swept along. But he wasn't attached to the serpentine line of people. Instead the hand in his pulled him into the dark, around the side of the set, behind the scrim, up against the back wall, and there she pressed herself into him as the applause rose, her mouth soft against his.

The response within him was immediate--it cracked him to the core. He couldn't get enough of her, the smell of her musty gown and the stage makeup mixed with the beads of her sweat, the feel of her wavy hair fisted in his hand as she held him tighter against her.

He pulled away long enough to reverse their positions, to press her into the wall and fumble in the dark with the front of her corset. After a moment its punishing strictures gave, sending her breasts spilling over the top as she gulped in a heaving breath. He was already cupping her with both hands, bending his head to take first one nipple and then the other into his mouth. She arched her body against his tongue as the corset fell to her waist, her fingers clenched in his hair.

"Bellamy," she whispered, her voice strained. "We should talk about this."

In response, he bit down lightly on her nipple, turning her next words into a muddled moan as he kneaded her other breast in his palm. When she managed to speak again it was in a quavering tone.

"Seriously, Bellamy, I'm sor--"

"For fuck's sake, Clarke," he growled, straightening up and kissing her roughly. "I forgave you two acts ago."

The darkness and the fervor the crowd pushing them both to an intoxicated rhythm, Clarke helped Bellamy unlace his ridiculously tight breeches. He was already gathering up the folds of her gown, hitching them past her thighs, holding her tightly to him as he thumbed her panties to one side, as he angled his hips into hers.

"Bellamy, wait."

He stilled immediately. Beyond them, on the stage, he could hear the smattering of laughter as the audience realized its two leads weren't out there. He was confident that Jasper was making the most of that. 

Clarke's arms were looped around Bellamy's neck and in the weak, refracted light filtering through the scrim from the stage, he could make out the focused concern in her eyes.

"What?" 

"Say it."

"Say what?"

She gave him an infuriatingly patient look. "Say it."

"Clarke, I don't know what you w--" And then it clicked. Cupping her naked backside in one hand and pressing against the wall overhead with the other, he eased himself slowly inside her, recapturing her mouth when she gasped aloud.

"Fuck," he growled, biting down on her bottom lip. "That." He withdrew and then slid deeper with each punctuated word, making her whimper, making her beg with her mouth and hands. "Stupid. Mother. Fucking. Rule."

And then there was nothing but her lips against his and the feeling of her wrapped around him, drawing him up to a dizzying peak, both of them riding it out on the swell of applause, the touch of the other's tongue, the bright copper taste of success.

 

When they made it down into the Dungeon fifteen minutes later, most of the cast had already changed out of their costumes and assembled in the green room to wipe the cakey remains of makeup from each other's necks, ears, and hairlines.

Walking through the door, Bellamy and Clarke were immediately met with a shower of crumpled-up makeup wipes, used napkins, and crushed soda cans.

"Where the fuck were you guys?" Miller demanded from the couch. 

Harper was glaring at them from her perch on the makeup counter. "We looked like idiots up there waiting for you. Monty had to run backstage to get a blond wig."

Bellamy and Clarke exchanged nonplussed looks. "For what?"

"So I could pretend to be Clarke for the curtain call," Monty said in an _obviously_  tone of voice. "Although there weren't enough tissues in the world back here to make me, y'know..." He rounded his hands away from his chest to indicate voluptuousness.

Clarke rolled her eyes. "Classy, Monty."

"Well, who the hell took a bow for me then?" Bellamy demanded, wondering what they'd had to do to make that happen. Jasper raised his hand from the back. Bellamy gave him an incredulous up-and-down. "What'd you wear?"

Jasper looked offended. "Nothing! We look so similar, dude! Same long, curly hair. Same, y'know, masculine physique." He struck a pose and earned himself a similar shower of garbage from all sides.

"Hey!" Monroe spoke up in a very different tone. "Why are you guys holding hands?"

Silence fell as everyone turned to study Bellamy and Clarke's entwined fingers. Then Raven drawled from her spot in Wick's lap on the recliner, "Didn't Bellamy always have a saying for moments like this? Something like no--"

"--romances in the workplace, people!" finished everyone else, quite loudly and with a tinge of spite.

"Actually, my saying for this was you can all go fuck yourselves," Bellamy shot back, flipping the bird in Raven's direction.

"I'm pretty sure you told me the Ark can't handle any more relationship bullshit," Octavia remarked, although even with the edge in her voice she sounded amused.

"It can't," Bellamy replied easily. He looked down at Clarke with a half-smile and squeezed her hand. "This is something new."


	9. Curtain Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little epilogue for my girl, liciapocalypse, who has been deeply wounded by Season 3.
> 
> Here's Bellamy pushing Clarke against some stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they  
> would talk themselves mad."  
> \- Leonato, Act II, Scene i

"Bellamy Caesar Blake, you get your ass out here right now or I'm coming in!" 

Clarke hammered on the door until she had nearly tattooed her message into the wood with the side of her fist. From inside the dressing room, she could hear muttered cursing. After a moment, the door swung open and Bellamy stood there, shirtless, pissed, and wearing only half the requisite number of leaves.

"Seriously, Clarke?" he demanded incredulously. " _Caesar_?"

"It was an educated guess," she replied loftily. "Brutus seemed like too much of an alliteration." 

He folded his arms across his bare chest and narrowed his eyes at her. "How do you not know my middle name by now?"

"Oh, like you know mine?"

"I am _positive_ that it's Abigail."

They did nothing but glare at each other for an extended moment. "Where's the rest of your costume?" she snapped finally.

He spread his hands and looked down at his spackled body with sheer exasperation. "I don't know what the fuck this is supposed to be! I feel like a fucking idiot!"

"Well, you look like a fucking idiot, if it's any consolation," she smirked. He gave her the sort of glare that Jasper called a _conversation corrosive_ , but it had no effect on Clarke. She stepped inside and glanced around the dressing room. "Where are the rest of your leaves? You're supposed to be a tree. Right now it just looks like you spent the night in one."

"I've changed my mind about putting on Mackers," he said grumpily.

"You have not. Now get it together, Blake, you're the only one not dressed at the dress rehearsal."

"I can change that."

She heard the wicked growl in his voice too late to make it to the hall. In one fluid motion, he hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her up onto the makeup counter, scattering foundation containers onto the floor. Kicking the door shut, he stepped between her legs and pressed her into the warped mirror. A shower of leaves fell from his shoulders and arms as he kissed her, long and hard.

"Bellamy..." she sighed as his lips fell to her neck. "We've got maybe five minutes before the next act."

"Thank you, five," he murmured against her throat, shifting her headset out of the way as he moved down toward her collarbone. 

"I mean it. I can only play Monty vs. Guildenstern with them so many times before Monty decides he'll remember his answers better if he's stoned." His lips continued to brush along her skin, and her head clunked back against the mirror when he reached the valley of her breasts. "If you want to direct this play __and__  have a bit role in it, you have to actually leave this dressing roo...oh screw it. The cast can wait." 

She felt him grin warmly against her. "That's something I could never have imagined hearing from you a year ago."

"You're a bad influence on me."

"'I pray thee now, tell me,'" he quoted smoothly, "'for  which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?'"

This was an old game. "'All of them,'" she smiled, and she meant it. She shook her head. "I still can't believe we hooked up during that ridiculous play. Now we'll be quoting it until the cast breaks our legs."

"About that," he said, pulling away from his task and fixing her with a serious look. "I was thinking that for the fall run we could put on _Measure for Measure._ "

A fall run was a new idea for the Ark, but with the extra revenue they'd garnered from the previous season, they had enough money to put on two shows a year: a summer production with Bellamy as the director and Clarke as the stage manager, and a fall production where they would both try out for roles onstage.

She made a face. "We just put on _Much Ado_  a year ago. How is _Measure_ any different than..." Trailing off, she watched him drop his eyes and stop a smile just as Vincentio's proposal to Isabella came to her:  _Give me your hand and say you will be mine._  

She tried to hide the understanding that dawned on her, the absolute knowledge that she would end up cast as Isabella with him as Vincentio, and that one day, on one of the performances, the ring he slipped on her finger would be real. She knew he could see the realization all over her face, though, because they had never been very good at hiding their thoughts from one another.

"It'll give us something new to quote, anyway," he grinned. He straightened up and kissed her swiftly, scorchingly, until feedback screeched from Clarke's headset. Neither of them jumped at the sound. It was such a constant in their relationship by this point that it was practically part of the foreplay.

"Would you guys finish boning in there already?" Raven demanded. "Lights have been standing by for seven-and-a-half minutes and the cast is getting--Jasper! Get that out of your mouth!--kinda restless."

They broke apart, shaking their heads but still smiling like idiots. Clarke turned her mic on long enough to say "Be right there" before Bellamy flicked it off again. 

"So what do you say?" He sounded serious, nervous even.

"I say yes," she replied immediately, a tremor going through her at everything she was saying yes to. She ignored it; she had said yes to it all a long time ago. "The only question now is whether to make Jasper Lucio or Elbow."

He pulled her down off the counter, his fingers hooked in her belt loops. "Or even Mistress Overdone."

"Ha! And Lincoln and Octavia could be Claudio and Juliet."

He broke away and frowned down at her. "I am _not_ having Lincoln play the guy who illegitimately knocks up my little sister, Clarke."

She ignored his thunderous tone and pushed open the door to the hall dismissively. "Of course you are, Bellamy, don't be an idiot. She'll be showing by October anyway, so we won't even need to pad her costume--it's too perfect." 

She paused in the doorway as he glared at her, the occasional leaf still fluttering morosely from his bare chest to the floor. Holding out her fist, she raised her eyebrows invitingly. "Best out of three? I'll throw Rock the first time, go easy on you."

His glare was slowly cracking, shot through with the edges of a smile. He reached out and closed his hand over her fist, threading his fingers through hers. "I really loathe you sometimes, Princess."

"You love me."

"That too." 

" _FRIGGIN' NOW, PEOPLE._ "

Their fingers still laced together, they stepped out of the Dungeon and headed up the stairs, back to the house where their family was waiting.


End file.
